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@@ -2200,6 +2200,79 @@ Movies based on /Hard to be a God/ are also amazing!
 
 [fn:teen] Teenage me hated that, but as I mentioned occasionally, he wasn't very bright.
 
+
+*** DONE Roadside Picnic (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1972)
+CLOSED: [2024-07-15 Mon 21:35]
+:PROPERTIES:
+:EXPORT_FILE_NAME: roadside-picnic-1972
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :abstract A short review of an absolute marvel of a book
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :image brain-rot/covers/roadside-picnic.jpg
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :rating  4.5
+:END:
+
+/Roadside Picnic/ has a very particular heritage.
+There is a book.
+It was then made into a movie, which took the last 30 pages and went its own way. It's great.
+Then they made it into a game, which takes some ideas for the basic premise, and then the authors went their own way, creating an antithesis of the book. I've been told it's good.
+But this time: the novel.
+
+In the near future, aliens have landed on Earth.
+No one knows why, but they came and went without much ado.
+Their landing site is now called /the zone/.
+Before leaving, the aliens left some artifacts.
+We don't know what they are, but there is the promise of giant leaps for mankind.
+Therefore, a new occupation is born: - /stalkers/, who venture into the zone and try ans retrieve some alien leftovers.
+The zone is dangerous, and stalkers often lose their lives upon making the smallest mistakes.
+
+But /Roadside Picnic/ is not a book about that.
+It's depressing and full of commentary on humanity.
+Very often, people call it the best book by the Strugatsky brothers, and who am I to disagree?
+
+But it is not a book about aliens, or the zone.
+Those things exist, but first contact went and gone.
+Stalkers are not the heroes of humanity, they are expendable criminals.
+We think we may someday understand what happened, but we may as well not.
+The aliens visited Earth, but most likely haven't found anything of interest.
+What people are dying for, what may change the entire planet, may be nothing but some trash left on the side of the road.
+
+The cosmos is not something to explore or conquer.
+It's vast, and our planet is insignificant.
+
+And this is what the book is about.
+The Zone occupies very small portion of the novel, it's just means to an end.
+Red, the main hero, is just trying to make a living.
+He is not shy about drinking, visiting a bordello or cheating on his wife.
+At the same time, he is not shown as an evil person, because his existence doesn't matter.
+Even though he is one of the most experienced stalkers, his death would mean nothing.
+
+#+attr_shortcode: 4.5 "roadside-picnic.jpg" 
+#+begin_rating
+Cover
+#+end_rating
+The novel is also much less adventurous than one could expect, knowing the movie or the games.
+We spend just a handful of pages in the Zone, the rest happens in the nearby town.
+/Roadside Picnic/ is beautiful as anti-SiFi story.
+Everything we were taught to believe by western SciFi, the authors ignore.
+There is nothing /there/ for us.
+We are /nothing/.
+Space exploration?
+Meeting aliens?
+We don't even have any hopes or dreams left.
+
+But this makes the novel timeless.
+Our entertainment is no longer optimistic.
+We are not going into /Star Trek/, we missed that ship.
+Maybe hope in our insignificance is better than thinking we are our own worst enemy?
+
+/Roadside Picnic/ gets my high recommendation.
+Similarly to /Hard to be God/, the reader may breeze through it.
+It's short, and it's easy to read.
+But then we reach the last pages, where the weight of the story is passed us.
+
+There was to be an American TV series based on /Roadside/.
+All that we got was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dts0rjp5V8][trailer]] which clearly shows, that it is impossible to make an Americanized version.
+In it, a shot of people saluting the stalker is shown, which is a complete antithesis of what the Stugatsky brothers are telling us.
+
 ** European SciFi
 :PROPERTIES:
 :EXPORT_HUGO_SECTION: brain-rot/european-scifi