Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Stugartsky (4.2🌟)

Roadside Picnic is a science fiction novel about first contact but without actual contact. It was written in Russian in 1972 and translated to English by Olena Bormashenko.

A few years back earth was visited by aliens. No one knows why they came or what they did here. We only know that they stayed in several "Zones" around the planet. When they left the Zones were closed. Access is restricted to everyone to this day. Strange things happen there and people are scared.

Red Schuhart is a Stalker. His live depends on the Zone. He illegally collects artifacts the aliens left to sell them in the black market. He risks his life every time but the danger and mystery of the Zone are too tempting. His wife is scared and unhappy. Their daughter is a mutant as is every Stalker child. She is becoming less human every day. Perhaps she is a gift (or a curse) by the aliens. In his desperation Red will go back to the Zone in search of hope.

This is an excellent read. To me, more a character study than a plot driven story. Though the background information and narration of the trips to the Zone are interesting and gripping. We look into the mind of a man who doesn't know or want anything outside the zone. We see him making life and death decisions but lacking the morals and values to guide them. There many layers of meaning to explore in this novel. How a visit by aliens can affect people and societies? how can an exclusion zone, and black market corrupt people and their families? What are the effects of new, alien technology in our world? Why did they not stay or contact humans? All these in addition to the questions raised by Red's actions which are not necessarily moral...

My edition is a paperback, SF Masterworks published by Gollancz in 2012. It has 193 pages plus a foreword by Ursula K Le Guin and an afterword by Boris Stugartsky.

And

There is a movie titled Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky which is based on this Roadside Picnic. I have to say that the movie is a work of art. Though a simplification of the original story it conveys the emotions and tribulations of a Stalker through a particular trip to the Zone. I would say it digs deeper into the mind of the Stalker and two other men he guides.