#68. ROADSIDE PICNIC By Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

Published : 1977
Pages : 145
Overall Mark : 7/10

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those misfits who are compelled, in spite of the extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. Even the nature of his mutant daughter has been determined by the Zone. And it is for her that he makes his last, tragic foray into the hazardous and hostile territory.

ARKADY STRUGATSKY (1925-1991)
BORIS STRUGATSKY (1931-)
Arkady & Boris Strugatsky began to collaborate in the early 1950s after Arkady had studied English and Japanese and worked as a technical translator and editor and Boris had worked as a computer mathematician. Their work includes Hard To Be A God, Definitely Maybe and The Snail On The Slope. Andrei Tarkovsky's much admired film Stalker was based on Roadside Picnic.

VERDICT
This incredibly short novel plays off an interesting conceit - the idea of comparing alien visitors who have discarded rubbish on Earth to humans leaving rubbish at a picnic. With humans characterised as the wildlife that discover the rubbish, they are at a loss as to what the things really are or how dangerous they could be to them. A nice story that suffers possibly in translation, but is nevertheless a fine idea.