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Roadside Picnic

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Roadside Picnic
AuthorArkady and Boris Strugatsky
Original titleПикник на обочине
TranslatorAntonina W. Bouis
Cover artistRichard M. Powers
LanguageRussian
GenreScience fiction novel
PublisherMacmillan
Publication date
1972
Publication placeSoviet Union
Published in English
1977
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
ISBN0-02-615170-7
OCLC2910972

Roadside Picnic (Russian: Пикник на обочине, Piknik na obochine, IPA: [pʲikˈnʲik na ɐˈbotɕɪnʲe]) is a science fiction novella written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky between January 18 and November 3 of 1971. As of 1998, 38 editions of the novel were published in 20 countries.[1] The novel was first translated to English by Antonina W. Bouis. Preface to the first American edition of the novel (MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, New York, 1977) was written by Theodore Sturgeon .The film Stalker directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is loosely based on the novel, with a screenplay written by the Strugatskys.

Writing the novel and Soviet censorship

The story was written by Strugatsky brothers in 1971 (the first outlines written January 18-27, 1972 in Leningrad, with the final version completed between October 28 and November 3, 1971 in Komarovo.)

In 1977, the novel was first published in the United States in English.

Roadside Picnic was refused publication in the Soviet Union for eight years due to government censorship, numerous delays and sabotage. The heavily censored different versions published between 1980-2000 have little in common with the original version written by the authors. Soviet censors rewrote major plot points, changed names of characters and dialog to better reflect the ideologies of Karl Marx and Lenin (removed language deemed as "rude"; heavier emphasis was placed on the exploitation of the Zones for "materialistic" purposes by an elite bourgeois cabal as a means to oppress the proletariat masses, etc.)

The concept of the Zones angered Soviet censors who viewed the plot as a treasonous attack on Soviet Communism[citation needed]. Wondrous objects within the Zones (Western countries), were unavailable outside the Zones (Soviet Union). Some censors viewed Stalkers as an allusion to smugglers or privileged Soviet citizens who returned from Western Countries (Zones) with wondrous objects (washing machines, dishwashers, color TV's, luxury cars, etc.) which were not manufactured, available or even heard of by the majority of people within the Soviet Union. The only Russian language version endorsed by the Strugatsky brothers as the original, was published in the 2000-2003 collection titled The Black Works of the Strugatsky Brothers.

Background information

The relatively short, 126 page novella begins approximately a decade after something alien, (called Visitors by human scientists), very briefly (approximately 12–24 hours), appeared at six different locations around Earth (called Visitation Zones by human scientists). The events take place some time during the 1970's. The six Visitation Zones around Earth are positioned in a smooth curve and are situated as though someone had taken six shots at Earth from a 'pistol' located somewhere along the Earth-Deneb line. Deneb is the alpha star in Cygnus.

Neither the Visitors themselves or their means of arrival and departure were ever seen. During the Visitation, people reported explosions and loud noises that blinded or deafened some, caused others to catch an incurable plague. Scientists labeled sub-sections of each Zone with names such as 'First Blind Quarter', 'Plague Quarter', 'Second Blind Quarter' based on the effects the Visitation had on the people. Some residents remained physically unharmed and sound of mind, yet if they moved to another town, their presence created unexplained events. For example, a barber who moved to another town who was present during the Visitation had 95% of his customers die in bizarre circumstances within a year. Eventually emigration was forbidden for anyone present during the Visitation inside the Zones.

The six Visitation Zones (some rural others in parts of towns) became infested with deadly phenomenon and littered with mysterious objects with various properties whose original purpose was incomprehensible by humans, and so bizarre that it bordered on the supernatural. Each Zone was perhaps a few square miles in size, with abandoned buildings, railways and cars, some slowly decaying while others seemed polished as if brand new. The Visitation Zones became deadly to all forms of Earth life containing space-time anomalies, and random spots capable of killing by fire, lightning, gravity or other bizarre ways. The laws of physics and reality worked sporadically in the Zones. The novel specifically deals with the Zone in Harmont, Canada over an eight year period.

United Nation Armies surrounded each Zone with strict orders to arrest or kill anyone attempting to sneak inside or out. Governments feared that some alien artifact would be found inside a Zone with enough power to cause extinction, permanently damage, or even destroy the planet. A frontier culture arose along the perimeter of the Zones, men known as "Stalkers" who risk their lives to find and illegally recover alien artifacts (called swag) from within the Zones and sell for large profits. This was an extremely dangerous and illegal line of work since one wrong move inside the Zone could be deadly. Stalkers could only work during the night since the Zone was observed during the day by soldiers and scientists. Only one out of every three Stalkers normally makes it out alive. Children fathered by Stalkers are always born deformed, sick or mutated which medicine cant cure and scientists can't explain. Scientists legally enter the Zones to find, retrieve and study artifacts as well as purchase illegally recovered artifacts indirectly from the Stalkers.

Even though the original purpose of the artifacts recovered was not understood, some objects had beneficial properties discovered by accident. A round black stick (called so-so) produced endless energy and was highly valued as an alternative power source for vehicles or airplanes. Other artifacts, like a unique object called the "Death Lamp" emitted rays which destroyed all life in its proximity. The original purpose of every object found in the Zones was unknown either because they were broken trash discarded by the Visitors or because their function was too advanced to be understood by scientists. The most desired and legendary artifact was the "Golden Sphere", which was rumored to have the power to make any wish come true. The Sphere was located deep inside the Zone and surrounded by deadly phenomenon that only one Stalker knew the route to reach it alive and return safely.

Meaning of the book title

The name of the novel derives from a metaphor proposed by Dr. Valentine Pillman, who believes there is no rational explanation either for the alien Visitation or the mysterious properties of the Zones or the purpose of the artifacts found there.

In the novel, he compares the Visitation to "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." The nervous animals in this analogy are the humans who venture forth after the Visitors left, discovering items and anomalies which are ordinary to those who discarded them, but incomprehensible or deadly to those who find them.

This explanation implies that the Visitors may not have even noticed or paid any attention to the human inhabitants of the planet during their "visit" just as humans don't notice or pay attention to grasshoppers or ladybugs during a picnic. The artifacts and phenomena left behind by them in the Zones were garbage, discarded and forgotten without any preconceived intergalactic plan to advance or damage humanity. There is little chance that the Visitors will return again, since for them, it was a brief stop for reasons unknown on the way to their actual destination.

Plot summary

Introduction

"FROM AN INTERVIEW BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT FROM HARMONT RADIO WITH DOCTOR VALENTINE PILMAN, RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS"

The three page introduction is a live radio interview with Dr. Pilman who demonstrated that the six Visitation Zones were not random. Dr Pilman stated in the interview: "Imagine that you spin a huge globe and you start firing bullets into it. The bullet holes would lie on the surface in a smooth curve. The whole point (is that) all six Visitation Zones are situated on the surface of our planet as though someone had taken six shots at Earth from a pistol located somewhere along the Earth-Deneb line. Deneb is the alpha star in Cygnus."

Section 1

"REDRICK SCHUHART, AGE 23, BACHELOR, LABORATORY ASSISTANT AT THE HARMONT BRANCH OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL CULTURES"

Section 2

"REDRICK SCHUHART, AGE 28, MARRIED, NO PERMANENT OCCUPATION"

Section 3

RICHARD H. NOONAN, AGE 51, SUPERVISOR OF ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT SUPPLIES FOR THE HARMONT BRANCH OF THE IIEC

Section 4

REDRICK SCHUHART, AGE 31

The story revolves around Redrick "Red" Schuhart, a tough and experienced Stalker who led and survived multiple expeditions into the Zone, gathering valuable artifacts (called swag) for profit. Eventually Red becomes employed as a lab assistant at the International Institute for Extraterrestrial Cultures, near the edge of the Visitation Zone in Canada. The Institute studies the items recovered from the Zone as well as attempts to form theories about the entire Visitation event. Red along with his friend from the Institute legally enter the Zone to recover a specific artifact which leads to the death of his friend. This event, which Red felt he could have prevented, leads him deeper into alcoholism and depression.

Red's girlfriend Guta is pregnant and decides to keep the baby. The frequent expeditions to the Zone by Stalkers cause a high chance of mutations in children. Guta gives birth to a beautiful, happy and intelligent daughter. A clone of Red's deceased father returns from the cemetery, now located inside the Zone, as clones of deceased have returned. Red's daughter, initially a normal, happy girl, becomes more and more reclusive while evolving into a strange creature who resembles a reclusive, furry monkey who screams when asleep.

Red goes into the Zone one last time in order to make a wish in front of the "Golden Sphere", to make his daughter normal. He has a map to safely reach the sphere, given to him by the father of the son who joins him on the expedition. Red knows that the youth, who he begins to like, will have to be sacrificed before the sphere is reached. A phenomenon named the "meat-grinder" must be deactivated by taking the life of the first person who approaches it. After the death of the first person, the second may pass safety and make a wish. After they get to the location, surviving many obstacles, the teenager rushes forward towards the "Golden Sphere", praying to the sphere to "Happiness for everybody, free, and nobody will go away unsatisfied!". The book ends at that point without letting the reader know if the sphere granted the wish or killed Red.

Artifacts left by Visitors in the Zones

The artifacts left behind by the Visitors can be broken down into four categories:

(1) Objects beneficial to humans, yet whose original purpose, how precisely they work or how to manufacture them is not understood. The 'So-So' and 'Bracelets' are among the artifacts that fall into this category.

(2) Objects whose functionality, original purpose or how to use them to benefit humans can not yet be understood. The 'Black Sprays' and 'Needles' are among the artifacts that fall into this category.

(3) Objects that are unique. Their existence is passed along as legends by Stalkers; were never seen by scientists, whose functionality is so dangerous and so far beyond human comprehension that they are better off left undisturbed. The 'Golden Sphere' and the 'Jolly Ghost' are among the artifacts that fall into this category.

(4) Not object but effects on people who were present inside the Zones during the Visitation. Humans who survived the Visitation without going blind or infected by the plague caused unexplained problems if they emigrated away. A barber who survived the Visitation emigrated to a far off city and within a year 90% of his customers died in mysterious circumstances as well as a number of natural disasters foreign to the area (typhoons, tornadoes) hit his city. Even people who were never present during the Visitation but frequently visit the Zone are changed somehow, for example by having mutated children or by having duplicates of their dead relatives return to their homes.

Artifacts

  • Batteries. A round black stick (also called So-So) that produced endless energy and is used to power vehicles instead of gasoline. Small, easily portable, and most importantly an unlimited power source. Able to replicate through a process similar to cell division. Able to power vehicles indefinitely.
  • Death Lamp -- "Eight years ago a Stalker by the name of Stefan Norman, nicknamed Four-Eyes, brought out an apparatus from the Zone that, as far as can be judged, was some kind of ray-emitting system fatal to earth organisms. This Four-Eyes offered the apparatus to the Institute. They did not agree on the price. Four-eyes re-entered the Zone and never came out again. The present whereabouts of the apparatus is unknown. People at the institute are still tearing their hair out over failing to buy it, and now are offering any amount for it that could be written on a check."
  • Empties—Weight 15 pounds. Two copper disks the size of Frisbees, about a quarter inch thick, with an empty space of a foot and a half between the disks. It's unknown how the two disks are attracted to each other or what holds them in place. No force can push them closer together or pull them apart. It is possible to pass any object through the empty space between the two discs. No known benefit to humanity. Possibly a type of a container.
  • Full-Empty—only one found in Garage filled with blue liquid. Too heavy for one strong man to move, and almost too heavy for two men to move. Blue filling sifted cloudily in slow streams between the disks, like a glass jar with blue syrup.
  • Itchers—a few centimetres in diameter. It must be squeezed a few times to activate it. Its effects are felt around an area of a few hundred yards. Dogs start howling and barking as they sense it activated before humans do. It affects humans in different ways: some get nose-bleeds, others starts hysterically screaming, some fall into deep depression, others freak out, and some panic with fear.
  • Black Sprays—pretty black beads that are used for jewelry. If you shine a ray of light into one of those beads, the transmission of the light is delayed and the delay depends on the bead’s weight, size, and several other parameters. And the unit of light coming out is always smaller than the one entering. Unknown usefulness to humans.
  • Sponges—Mentioned, but never described in the novel.
  • Pins—Looked slightly blue and occasionally spattered with other colours—yellow, red, and green. When squeezed with fingers, a few pins generated "weak red bolts illuminating the pin that were suddenly replaced by slower green pulses." The majority required special machines to cause this effect. Unknown functionality.
  • Bracelets—Somehow causes the person wearing one to become healthier over time.
  • Dick the Tramp—A never seen artifact which cause noise and shaking inside the industrial plant in the Zone. A Nobel Prize winning scientist jokes that it could be a wind-up toy that a Visitor child accidentally left behind. Possibly the only long term 'inhabitant' of the zone.
  • Golden Sphere—Also known as the Wish Machine, this universally coveted artifact grants a wish of a person standing in front of it. It is a copper-colored sphere located behind a bulldozer at the entrance to a quarry inside the Zone. To reach it requires two people. The first person has to die to temporarily deactivate a phenomenon called the 'meat-grinder' (located next to the bulldozer) which kills by twisting and squeezing the person until what's left resembles meat that passed through a meat-grinder. While the meat-grinder is temporarily deactivated, the second person can safely reach the Golden Sphere and make a wish. The Stalker Buzzard supposedly made multiple wishes that came true including wishing for a grown son and daughter. Redrick describes his impression of the Wish Machine as: "It lay at the foot of the quarry’s far wall, cozily resting amidst piles of rocks. It lay where it had fallen. Maybe it accidentally fell out of some monstrously huge pocket and got lost or rolled away during a game between giants. It had not been carefully placed here, it had been left behind, littering up the Zone like all the empties, bracelets, batteries, and other rubbish remaining after the Visitation."
  • Lobster Eyes - Unknown function. Very rare item.
  • Rattling Napkins - Unknown function. Very rare item.
  • Wriggling Magnet - Very rare or unique item. Removed from the Zone by Stalker nicknamed Buzzard. Redrick suspects that Buzzard was granted a wish by the Golden Sphere to be able to safely retrieve and remove this unique item since it could not be reached without dying. This theory is supported by the fact that Buzzard mentions to Redrick in the second act, "I've been to places you could only dream of"; as Redrick was one of the most talented stalkers, it would seem to imply that Buzzard used a wish to enter otherwise inaccessible areas of the Zone. Functionality unknown.

Phenomenon

  • Jolly Ghosts — a deadly, abnormal air turbulence that occurs in random parts of the Zone. Mentioned as a legend but seen in the last chapter by Redrick from a safe distance.
  • Witches Jelly - The scientists refer to this as colloidal gas. A substance that penetrates any organic material, plastic, metal and concrete. Only special ceramic vessels seem to contain it. Almost everything that touched it transforms into Witches Jelly. It seems to collect in areas with the least elevation, basements and so on, and in the night it looks like alcohol burning with blue tongues. Apparently volatile, as Redrick mentions it "splashing out of the pit" in the garage on its own.
  • Greenie - Unknown green colored substance that slithers like a long, thick snake randomly on the surface of the Zone. Possibly dangerous to humans.
  • Mosquito Mange - called Graviconcentrates by scientists. Location around the Zone with highly amplified gravity capable of squashing a person into a 'pancake' or crush a flying helicopter. Stalkers locate mosquito manges by throwing small iron bolts a few yards in front of them. If the bolt shoots through the ground as if it was a fired bullet, a Mosquito Mange is located, and avoided.
  • Replicas - autonomous replicas of people buried in cemeteries before the Visitation inside the Zone. The replicas shuffle outside the Zone and return to the former residence of the deceased. Body parts of the replica are completely autonomous, and continue to function even if cut off. They are clumsy with jerky movements, similar to that of a mechanical doll and possess no intelligence. Replicas imitate people's actions located next to them.
  • Silver Web - Encountered in the first act. Appears like a large spider's web. When the scientist Kirill backed into it, it made a "crackling" sound and vanished. Hours later, he died of a heart attack.
  • Spitting Devil's Cabbage - Never explained in the novel. Redrick mentions how the special suits are decent protection against it, so it's implied that this is some form of hostile alien plant that spits a harmful substance at anything that gets too close.
  • Black Bramble - The black bramble supposedly indicates the Zone's border, so presumably this is another form of alien plant life.
  • Cotton - Mysterious substance that tends to grow on metal. Especially antennas. Stalkers tried to hook an antenna with cotton growing on it using a helicopter and a cable. The cable started smoking and "hissing poisonously", and the cotton started to grow up the cable.
  • Burning Fluff - Some kind of irritating white fluff. For some reason, the wind never blows it out of the Zone. Redrick mentions how the special suits provide 100% protection against it, so it must be not very threatening.
  • Shadows - In several areas, the shadows are warped and twisted, in the opposite direction of where they should be. Buzzard claims that this phenomenon is "weird but harmless".
  • Exploding Rainbows - Near the end of the novel, Redrick encounters a section of air "that shimmers and undulates, with hundreds of tiny rainbows exploding and dying". The novel never explains what this is, although it's probably dangerous, as they detour around it.
  • Fire - An area of spontaneous combustion. It's unknown whether the Stalker's presence "triggered" this anomaly, or if it comes and goes in an intermittent pattern. Redrick doesn't want to stay in the area due to the possibility that it may come back, so the latter is probably true.
  • Lightning - A form of pseudo-sentient lightning that originates from purplish-red dots. Found near the swamp leading to the quarry and the Golden Ball.
  • Meat Grinder - a deadly anomaly. Outwardly, almost invisible. Anything that enters into the Meat Grinder's target area, instantly twists, deforms and breaks into pieces, leaving behind a messy splotch. Only one stalker, Dixon miraculously survived the Meat Grinder, becoming a permanently deformed monstrosity. The Meat Grinder is located across the only path leading to the Golden Sphere. After the Meat Grinder is "triggered", it becomes inactive for a long time, allowing people walking behind the victim to safely pass through. The stalker Burbridge, lured unsuspecting companions to their deaths in order to deactivate the Meat Grinder and reach the Golden Sphere alone.
  • Shimmer - "Over the pile of old refuse, over broken glass and rags, crawled a shimmering, a trembling, sort of like hot air at noon over a tin roof. It crossed over the hillock and moved on and on toward us, right next to the pylon; it hovered for a second over the road -- or did I just imagine it? -- and slithered into the field, behind the bushes and the rotten fences, back there toward the automobile graveyard."

Awards and nominations

  • The novel was nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of 1978 and won second place.[2]
  • In 1978 the Strugatskys were accepted as honorary members of the Mark Twain Society for their "outstanding contribution to world science fiction literature."[3]
  • A 1979 Scandinavian congress on science fiction literature awarded the novel the Jules Verne prize for best novel of the year published in Swedish.
  • In 1981 at the sixth festival of science fiction literature in Metz the novel won an award for best foreign book of the year.

Adaptations

  • Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker contains characters from the Roadside Picnic and revolves around the quest for the Wish Machine. The Strugatsky brothers contributed to the script which was filmed on a very limited budget.
  • In 2003, the Finnish theater company Circus Maximus produced a stage version of Roadside Picnic, called Stalker. Authorship of the play was credited to the Strugatskys and to M. Viljanen and M. Kanninen.
  • While not direct a adaptation, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl contain anomalies, as well as artifacts, which are very loosely based on the Visitation Zones of the book but created by a nuclear catastrophe.
  • In 2008, a Finnish language tabletop roleplaying game called Stalker was developed by Ville Vuorela of Burger Games with the permission of Boris Strugatsky.
  • M. John Harrison's novel Nova Swing is so similar to the Roadside Picnic that one reviewer quipped that Nova Swings at a Roadside Picnic would be a more appropriate title. The plagiarized plot features an Event Zone where strange and unpredictable events occur and bounty hunters risk their life to retrieve unusual artifacts for profit.
  • The book is referenced to in the post-apocalyptic videogame "Metro 2033" In the library level, where Danila shuffles through a shelf of books and finds the Roadside Picnic. He states that it is "Something Familiar."
  • The 1998 big budget Hollywood movie Sphere also contains a sphere which grants wishes.
  • The Island within the TV series 'Lost' features many similarities to the Zone. In the later half of the first season, when Locke and Boone travel to the plane, Boone is killed after the plane falls from the ledge. Locke then claims Boone "was a sacrifice to the Island", after which Locke pounds upon the hatch while pleading in desperation. This mirrors the end of Roadside Picnic, where Arthur is sacrificed to the meatgrinder, and Red crawls up to the Golden Ball.

English releases

  1. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika (Best of Soviet Science Fiction) translated by Antonina W. Bouis. New York: Macmillan Pub Co, 1977, 245 pp. ISBN 0-02-615170-7. LCCN: 77000543.
  2. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. London: Gollancz, April 13, 1978, 150 pp. ISBN 0-575-02445-3.
  3. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika. New York: Timescape (Pocket Books), February 1, 1978. ISBN 0-671-81976-3.
  4. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. London: Penguin Books, September 27, 1979, 160 pp. ISBN 0-14-005135-X.
  5. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. New York: Pocket Books (Timescape), September 1, 1982, 156 pp. ISBN 0-671-45842-6.
  6. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic (SF Collector's Edition). London: Gollancz, August 24, 2000, 145 pp. ISBN 0-575-07053-6.
  7. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic (S.F. Masterworks). London: Gollancz, February 8, 2007. ISBN 0-575-07978-9.

Notes

  1. ^ http://www.rusf.ru/abs/encycly/abs_chup.htm Life and Work of Strugatsky (in Russian)
  2. ^ http://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=450
  3. ^ http://www.rusf.ru/abs/english/e-awards.htm
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