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| Macmillan 1977, Richard Powers |
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| Alex Andreyev |
Stalkers
The novel takes place in the industrial city of Harmont, thirteen years after a "Visitation" by extraterrestrials. Going against genre conventions, circumstances of the Visitation itself are never made clear. Instead, the narrative centers on the aftermath effects of the event on the surrounding area, eventually known as a dangerous "Zone", a region fraught with bizarre phenomena. An Institute near the site sends out periodic expeditions to investigate the site and retrieve bits of alien technology for study. At the same time, hard-bitten scavengers named "stalkers" make unauthorized trips into the Zone to retrieve artifacts for sale on the black market.
Roadside Picnic follows the exploits of a Harmont native named Redrick as he struggles to make a living doing odd jobs while also moonlighting as a stalker. Much of the novel, written a a somewhat noir style, focuses on Redrick's desperate personal life and his uneasy relationship to a network of other stalkers working the Zone. However, during the course of the novel, three Zone expeditions are undertaken in which the authors describe some of the strange wonders found in it.
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| Gollancz/Orion 2007, Dominic Harman |
The title refers to one scientist's theory that the artifacts and phenomena found in the Zone are merely detritus left behind by the extraterrestrials, just as humans leave behind garbage in the wake of picnic excursions. In this way, the novel effectively reduces mankind's self-image to that of "ants" in comparison to the advanced technology of the Visitors. The novel is structured as a prologue and four vignettes (separated over eight years), and the third episode highlights this humbling proposition. Some the alien artifacts/phenomena described in the book include the following:
Empties: Two copper discs separated by an invisible (hydromagnetic) field (force field container), sometimes containing blue matter ("filled empties")
Itcher/Shrieker: Ultrasonic grenade
Cobweb: silvery web, causes delayed heart attacks
Moulage: Reanimated corpse (harmless)
Mosquito mange/Bug trap: high gravity well ("graviconcentrate")
Golden Ball (Sphere): supposedly grants wishes
Witch's Jelly/Hell Slime: dissolves bone, highly infectious
Meatgrinder ("Happy ghosts"): invisible physical force which twists objects in mid-air
Burning Fuzz: Misty floating substance, very hot
Perpetual motion bracelet
Black sparks: tiny beaded spatial anomalies used as exotic jewelry
Death lamp: fatal ray-emitting device
So-sos ("spacells"): perpetual batteries which reproduce
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| Tom J. Manning |
From an interview by a special correspondent from Harmont Radio with Doctor Valentine Pilman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics for 19..
- Thirteen years after the city of Harmont is visited by aliens (referred to as the "Visitation"), a scientist named Pilman describes the method he used to determine their origin point based on six total Visitation sites. He is also questioned about "stalkers", criminal scavengers who enter the Visitation "Zones" unofficially to acquire alien artifacts for illegal profit.
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| Jerzy Skarżyński 1976 |
1. Redrick Schuhart, Age 23, Bachelor, Laboratory Assistant at the Harmont Branch of the International Institute for Extraterrestrial Cultures
- In order to cheer up his Russian scientist friend Kirill, a young lab assistant named Redrick (a resident of Harmont who sometimes makes money as a stalker) proposes to help Kirill on an expedition into the Visitation Zone to retrieve an "empty" (essentially a cylindrical alien canister with no sides). Before they leave, Redrick is given a warning by a security head for his past stalker indiscretions. Nonetheless, he and Kirill enter the Zone's Plague Quarter on a "boot" (hover transport) to enter the Zone. They are joined by a third member named Tender in order to adhere to official expedition protocols.
- Almost immediately, they are shaken when they briefly spot a shimmering entity, although the bizarre creature soon floats away. Later, they encounter a "graviconcentrate" zone (area of extreme gravity) which Redrick traces through the trajectories of nuts and bolts thrown through the air. After avoiding a few other strange phenomena, Redrick's hover transport arrives at a garage where he retrieves the "full empty" (filled with blue material). However, when Kirill helps him carry the artifact back to the transport, he accidentally brushes against a silvery, crackling web-like substance. Fortunately, Kirill seems not to have been harmed.
- The expedition soon returns to the Institute to collect their bonus pay and make statements to the press. Later at a bar named the Borscht, Redrick fends off some of the shady characters frequenting the place, but eventually hears that Kirill has suddenly died due to a heart attack. Upset, Redrick sabotages the bar (with a bit of Visitor tech called an "itcher" or a "shrieker") and meets his girlfriend Guta, who subsequently informs him that she is pregnant. She tells him that she is concerned about the disturbing rumors she has heard about children born from stalkers.
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| Vladislav Vovchuk |
2. Redrick Schuhart, Age 28, Married, No Permanent Occupation
- On another stalker expedition, Redrick and a veteran stalker named Burbridge go into the Zone in order to obtain some "swag", but Burbridge's legs become crippled when they come into contact with some "Witch's Jelly" ("hell slime"). After evading both Zone patrols and a zombie-like creature, Redrick takes him back to the city where he drops him off with Butcher, a doctor who helps stalkers. Afterwards, he returns home to Guta and his golden-furred daughter Monkey.
- After refreshing himself, Redrick heads to the Metropole hotel for a rendezvous, but before he enters he has a brief moment of sensory overload (probably related to one of the artifacts he is carrying). Before he enters the hotel, he runs into Noonan, an old friend from the Institute who invites him to a meeting later in the day at the Borscht. Inside the Metropole, Redrick sells the artifacts obtained from his stalker expedition to some shady characters named Bones and Throaty, after which he visits Burbridge's house and gives half of the earnings to the stalker's apathetic children (one of whom is a mutant). Later, he goes to the Borscht to meet with Noonan but is ambushed by police. Redrick narrowly escapes them and rushes home to hide a bit of "special" Visitor swag (a porcelain jar containing some Witch's Jelly). Afterwards, he calls Throaty and gives him the location of the Witch's Jelly in return for his promise to care for Guta and Monkey while Redrick is in prison.
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| Penguin Books 1979, Adrian Chesterman |
- Under the impression that he has completely wiped out all illegal stalker activity in the Harmont Zone, Noonan meets with his superior and learns that despite all his undercover efforts, a large number of Zone goods have continued to hit the market. He goes to the Five Minutes bar to interrogate his inside man Mosul about the contraband leaving the Zone, but Mosul claims ignorance of any such activity.
- Afterwards, Noonan has a drink with the famed physicist Valentine Pilman to discuss the true purpose of the Visitation and the Zones. Pilman explains his theory that the technological wonders of the Zones are merely the tossed off remnants of extraterrestrial holiday excursions, much like mankind leaves garbage in the forest after a "roadside picnic". Pilman also categorizes the different kinds of strange phenomena triggered by the Zones and states that his biggest fear concerns the Emigrants (people who had lived in Harmont at the time of the Visitation and have since moved away). When an Emigrant arrives in a new city, that city becomes prey to an unnaturally high statistic of disasters. This warping of statistical processes defies mathematics itself.
- Afterwards, Noonan drives to Redrick's house and has a reunion with his old friend, who has recently gotten out of prison. He notices that Red's daughter Monkey has become more inhuman than ever and no longer even speaks. A "moulage" (reanimated corpse) also sits in the living room, who is later revealed to be Redrick's deceased father. Noonan wonders if the Visitation was not a "roadside picnic" but a form of invasion through indigenous mutation. Noonan tells Redrick that some Witch's Jelly obtained from an "unknown source" had destroyed a lab in another city, but Redrick shows no remorse.
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| Pocket Books 1978, Alan Magee |
- Burbridge gives Redrick a map which will lead him to the Golden Ball, a Visitation artifact supposedly with the power to grant any wish. Redrick hopes to use the Golden Ball to make his daughter normal, while Burbridge hopes to wish his crippled legs back to normal. Unfortunately, to reach the Golden Ball, a "patsy" has to be sacrificed in order to get past one of the hazards on the way. Redrick decides to bring Burbridge's eager son Archie (but doesn't tell the boy his true purpose, or tell Burbridge that he is bringing his son). After a long and painful trek (during which Redrick questions his own motives), the two make it to the quarry where the Golden Ball lies. As planned, Archie is killed by the "meat grinder" (some kind of destructive invisible force) while trying to reach the Golden Ball, although before he dies he reveals that his wish is "happiness for all". With the way clear, Redrick makes his way to the Golden Ball and ends up echoing Archie's dying wish in his mind.
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| Alex Andreyev |
Stanislaw Lem on Roadside Picnic
Ursula K. Le Guin on Roadside Picnic
