Alice Teh Larsson

This is a 100-word book review.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky is less about alien contact than humanity’s need to make the unknowable meaningful. The protagonist, Redrick Schuhart, is a “Stalker” repeatedly drawn into the contaminated Zone. This Strugatsky novel explores greed, scientific ambition, guilt, love, and desperation. I initially expected a clear quest to save his mutated daughter but found something murkier and unsettling. Instead of the typical action-packed sci-fi involving aliens and the usual suspects, I discovered something else. I wondered about the point of this novel, so I’ll write a few more posts about this from my reading notes.

PS: The “Afterword” section makes a fascinating read!