A Roadside Picnic

[E.A Rumfield]

Great title right? Written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. A Roadside Picnic is a novel about first contact. Instead of sticking around to chat instead the aliens pick up and leave. They have left various garbage in five spots across the globe deemed Zones. Science, philosophy and religion search for answers but make little head way. Most of the alien junk left behind is dangerous. Some has no known use. Science has found ways to make some things useful but it is clear that it's real purpose is not understood. The Zone is dangerous and certain people risk their lives to go into the Zone and retrieve the loot. As humanity searches for it's universal meaning and individuals search for their own meaning the novel unfolds in a bleak Russian city. Should humanity continue to raid the Zone. Is the best the Zone has to offer better then the worst? The novel is best summed up right here.

"A picnic. Imagine: a forest, a country, a meadow. A car pulls off the road into the meadow and unloads young men, bottles, picnic baskets, girls, radios, cameras, a fire is lit, tents are pitched, music is played. And in the morning they leave. The animals and birds and insects that were watching in horror the whole night slowly crawl out from their shelters. And what do they see??? An oil spill, a gasoline puddle, old sparkplugs and oil filters strewn about. Scattered rags, burnt out bulbs , someone dropped a monkey wrench. The wheels tracked mud from some god forsaken swamp... and of course the remains of the campfire, apple cores candy wrappers tins bottles someones handkerchief a penknife old ragged newspaper coins wilted flowers and another meadow. A roadside picnic. And you ask if they'll come back."

[prendrelemick]

This could be a moment I have been waiting twenty years for.:p

The scenario is familiar to something I saw back then and have often wondered about.

Was there a Russian film of this? I remember a bleak Russian City where people were trying to enter The Zone. That was twenty years ago, and I remember the strange twist:

SLIGHT SPOILER

In The Zone your greatest wish is granted. But it is your greatest inner sub-concious wish, one you are not even aware of. That is such a clever philosophical scenerio, the ramifications and possibilities are fascinating, I have often wondered what my wish is.


Am I on the right track? is this the book the film was based on?

A great review by the way.:thumbs_up

[E.A Rumfield]

This could be a moment I have been waiting twenty years for.:p

The scenario is familiar to something I saw back then and have often wondered about.

Was there a Russian film of this? I remember a bleak Russian City where people were trying to enter The Zone. That was twenty years ago, and I remember the strange twist:

SLIGHT SPOILER

In The Zone your greatest wish is granted. But it is your greatest inner sub-concious wish, one you are not even aware of. That is such a clever philosophical scenerio, the ramifications and possibilities are fascinating, I have often wondered what my wish is.


Am I on the right track? is this the book the film was based on?

A great review by the way.:thumbs_up

Andrei Tavorsky directed a movie called Stalker based off the book. It took place in the same universe some years later and involves a man the stalker who leads two other men identified only as the writer and the scientist into the Zone. It is said the Zone grants your utmost wish.