Roadside Picnic

What happens when the aliens visit - and don't make first contact? Source: Here

“A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.” 

After watching Stalker with a friend this past weekend it felt only fitting to revisit the source material, in spite of the differences between both creations. As the second book of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky that I read, Roadside Picnic very quickly and effectively established its impression as a Very Good Book.

Written in 1971, Roadside Picnic begins in the aftermath of aliens coming to Earth (an event dubbed "The Visitation") and visiting half a dozen separate locations across the world. After two days, they leave with as much explanation as their arrival; that is to say, not much at all. These six Visitation zones soon begin to develop unexplained phenomena beyond scientific understanding and the laws of physics seem to falter. These Zones also contain strange alien paraphernalia, the properties of which are unknown (and perhaps unknowable) and in spite of UN and military cordoning of the different Zones to prevent their removal, there arises a class of stalkers - individuals who go into the Zones and scavenge these alien artefacts for profit. The artefacts range from beneficial to highly hazardous, yet all to varying degrees are beyond human comprehension.

The title itself was the first hook that got me intrigued and very neatly sums up the twist on the classic science-fiction trope of aliens visiting Earth. Rather than coming to uplift (e.g. Childhood's End) or destroy humanity (e.g. the War of the Worlds), these aliens have merely stopped by briefly - in a similar manner to a family stopping for a roadside picnic - and moved on to their destination, leaving their rubbish behind. What if when aliens finally did arrive, they took no notice of us? That possibility intrigued me immensely; perhaps we aren't so special to visitors as we thought! To see a work go against the popular sci-fi trope of first contact and alien-human communication, to reduce it to an insignificant visit, now that takes some skill to pull off.

Our protagonist, Redrick "Red" Schuhart, is a stalker working within a specific Zone in the fictional town of Harmont in Canada, who regularly enters at night in order to scavenge artefacts for profit. Split into four sections, the main through-line concerns Red's acquisition of alien items and his trips into the Zone, playing out as a rather straightforward adventure in the alien Zone. As the story continues, you eke out more detail and more depth from Red's interactions, from the various other stalkers who perished in attempting to scavenge artefacts to his wife and child, the latter irrevocably changed by the Zone. Red isn't a hero with some special destiny or a man burdened with noble purpose; he's just a guy trying to get by on the day-to-day, a story that we can empathise with to varying degrees. 

The Strugatskys excel in their descriptions of this new and alien environment, adding just the right amount of detail to create an impression and a mood and leaving the rest appropriately blank and inscrutable (I have no idea what kind of phenomenon the "meatgrinder" is but you can tell you won't have a good time with it). The Zone itself could count as its own character, always present and lingering the further you read on, equal parts unknown and dreadful. Indeed, one of the core aspects repeatedly emphasised in the book is the insignificance of men and summarily of Red as well. The aliens gave them no notice, the Zone remains unexplained in spite of the many lives lost attempting to do so and the artefacts brought back, if made to work, we can't say if that holds any relation to its original purpose.

Indeed, it can be said that the Zone can be interpreted as a symbol of hopes and aspirations. Red could take a steady job to support his family but instead keeps returning to stalk the Zone again and again, because who wouldn't want to live in a world of hopes and dreams? Even in the final section, where Red acquires the Golden Sphere (a rumoured artefact capable of granting the wishes of anyone who finds it) he finds himself frozen. Having lived his whole life letting that struggle for a better tomorrow define him, to suddenly commit to a possibility erases all that, and then what is left? The ending is open to interpretation but the message is clear as day: while hope can keep someone alive, it can just as easily destroy them when it comes to shape and define their lives.

At under 200 pages, this is a tight book. No word, no sentence, no metaphor is wasted here - the Zone will remain with you long after you put down this book. A haunting, vivid ride through a strange, strange world.