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Bezig met laden... Bermtoeristen (1972)door Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky (Auteur)
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Yes I know it's supposed to be a classic, and it certainly addresses some interesting issues on the nature of intelligence and mankind's place in the universe as alien artifacts (or alien trash?) threaten the very fabric of a society already sliding into decay. And could there be a little social satire, Soviet-style, going on as pragmatists and dreamers battle it out? But it didn't hold my interest and that final meltdown was anticlimactic. Perhaps it had more layers in the original Russian? An entertaining story written in the USSR in the 1970s about a world that was visited briefly by an alien race that could best be described as litterbugs. The aliens never made any attempt to communicate with humans and are now long gone, but the detritus that they left has had a lasting impact. As a result the areas where they visited have been cordoned off and access is strictly limited. Although the authors say otherwise, I wonder if the idea of the Zones stems from what happened in Chelyabinsk-40 in 1957. I read in [book:Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster|40538681] that a nuclear accident occurred in the southern Urals that resulted in the release of highly radioactive contamination across the Urals—2 million curies of it—falling in a deadly trace six kilometers wide and nearly fifty kilometers long. It resulted in the creation of a highly secret forbidden zone that sounds very similar to the forbidden zones described in this novel. I can easily imagine that news of these events would have spread about by word of mouth and that writers could incorporate them into their stories, perhaps without even knowing that they are describing something that isn't entirely fictional. Eventually ten thousand people were ordered permanently evacuated over the course of two years. Entire settlements were plowed into the ground. Twenty-three villages were wiped from the map, and up to a half million people were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactivity. The edition that I read included an introduction by the great [author:Ursula K. Le Guin|874602] that praises this book highly and includes these scathing remarks about those would reject such works out of hand. A time, also, when a positive review of a work of Soviet science fiction was a small but real political statement in the United States, since part of the American science fiction community had undertaken to fight the Cold War by assuming every writer who lived behind the Iron Curtain was an enemy ideologue. These reactionaries preserved their moral purity (as reactionaries so often do) by not reading, so they didn’t have to see that Soviet writers had been using science fiction for years to write with at least relative freedom from Party ideology about politics, society, and the future of mankind. My thanks to the folks at the The Evolution of Science Fiction group at Goodreads for giving me the opportunity to read and discuss this and many other fine books. The premise of Roadside Picnic is brilliantly simple. It is a story about the aftermath of humanity’s first contact with alien life. Shortly before the story begins, aliens visit the earth, stay for a short time, then depart as suddenly as they’d arrived. What they leave behind are mysterious Zones, areas filled with invaluable technological wonders. But these areas are also filled with bizarre traps and dangers that can be instantly and brutally fatal. Those who venture into these areas are known as stalkers (Roadside Picnic served as the inspiration for the 1979 film Stalker). It was the novel concept of deadly areas filled with priceless alien technology that drew me to the book, but it was anti-hero protagonist Red Schuhart’s personal journey that kept the plot moving. The novel is filled with philosophical musings, and existential dread. Many consider it a novel about life within the Soviet Union but I consider it to be a novel about man's search for meaning in a universe that seems meaningless. If the Zones follow no inherent logic, and are truly "alien," then can we as rationale beings sit with this fact of unknowing? And what's the point of stalking if no scientific knowledge can be gained? That Lovecraftian feeling of human insignificance is pervasive throughout Roadside Picnic. And it really makes for a thought provoking, atmospheric, and fast-paced read.
Is opgenomen inStrugatzki Gesammelte Werke 2: Drei Romane in einem Band: Picknick am Wegesrand; Eine Milliarde Jahre vor dem Weltuntergang; Das Experiment door Arkadi Strugatzki Heeft de bewerkingInspireerdePrijzenOnderscheidingenErelijsten
"Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of the extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a "full empty," something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he'll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems."-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Actuele discussiesLE: Roadside Picnic in Folio Society Devotees Populaire omslagen
Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)891.7344Literature Literature of other languages Literature of east Indo-European and Celtic languages Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction USSR 1917–1991 Late 20th century 1917–1991LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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Hopefully, the film is better. ( )