Roadside Picnic

Lunchmeat · Post by **Lunchmeat** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 4:07 am

Apparently STALKER is based on this short story. I just started reading it and so far it is pretty good. You can find it translated from Russian right here.

Silver · Post by **Silver** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 12:23 pm

Nice. But I'm too lazy to read 30 pages, anyone have read it and willing to knock it down in a post?

Lunchmeat · Post by **Lunchmeat** » Fri Mar 07, 2003 7:45 am

I'm almost halfway through it. So far we've established the main character, Red. Red is a stalker. Red and his buddy go into the Zone looking for an artifact called a "full empty." During their excursion something happens to Red's buddy that seems insignifigant at the time. Red goes and gets drunk as soon as he gets back from the Zone. Soon after that he learns that his buddy is dead, heart attack. This convinces Red that the Zone is a bane to human kind and should be off limits. The first chapter ends as he learns his girlfriend/wife (i'm not sure) is pregnant. This fact is the source of mixed emotions as apparently children of stalkers end up as freaks.

At the beginning of the second chapter it is apparent that some time has passed since the first. It also switches narrative style from that of first person in Red's point of view to a standard third person narrator. It begins at what appears to be the end of a Zone trip gone somewhat awry. The man who Red was with has had an accident and things look grim. Looks like they've been ratted on and the cops are looking for them right at their exit point. They evade the cops and get Red's "partner" to some medical attention. Red goes home to his wife Guta and his kid Monkey. Yeah, Monkey is a wierd name for a kid, but being the child of a stalker this kid is wierd. The girl has fur. That's right fur. Red sorts the loot from his most recent trip and that's about where I left off.

This description so far has been very very vague and the actual story is so much more interesting than I make it out to be. It's late and I can't think straight is my excuse.

Silver · Post by **Silver** » Fri Mar 07, 2003 12:51 pm

Thanks mate, sounds like this guy could be on the Jerry Springer show.

Mr Carrot · Post by **Mr Carrot** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 6:49 pm

The films better, the transition from colour to B&W is fantastic.

Lunchmeat · Post by **Lunchmeat** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 5:47 am

there's a film?

Mr Carrot · Post by **Mr Carrot** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 7:35 pm

yep Rusky film Stalker, its on Film Four a lot if your in the UK

Lunchmeat · Post by **Lunchmeat** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 10:44 pm

never heard of it. wonder how hard it would be to find here in the states.

Silver · Post by **Silver** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 1:11 am

http://www.mhvf.net/forum/scifihorror/p ... 28897.html

Looks cool... I'm going try and find this DvD.

Lunchmeat · Post by **Lunchmeat** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 1:30 am

sounds like they changed some things.

Mr Carrot · Post by **Mr Carrot** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 2:08 pm

Well the games based FAR more on the film then the book. For one its nothing to do with aliens and to do with the Chenoybl theme of the film.

NumberZero · Post by **NumberZero** » Sun Mar 23, 2003 6:33 pm

Well, to be fair, the only part of the book that had anything to do with aliens was that the zones were caused when aliens landed on earth and dropped off all their garbage, scrap metal, depleted bateries, and various nicknacks that they had in the attic. Also their various useless items happened to be perpetemobiles, ultra-high gravity marbles, radioactive waste, trans-dimentional wormholes, antigravity stasis feilds, and also a bronze sphere that grants wishes.

Silver · Post by **Silver** » Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:46 am

Can't find the movie anywhere and this all sounds so nice :).

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:12 pm

I've read the book and I'm gonna see the film, I already know something about it.
I've read it in Polish, and I'm 95% positive that the translation is very good. I will have a glance through the English version and tell you what I think bout this translation (I'm a transaltor myslef, in case you find mistakes in my posts, bear in mind that translators work WITH various dictionaries and other books - the point is we can do it better than others; I don't use any books while writing posts

)

About the book: well, actually it's about human nature, about the meaning of life, about conscience, about the way people tend to exploit everything and lie to themselves and others that it's all right, about choosing personal goals and finding one's own definition of decency, about human ignorance, about our misconception of the world in that we try to impose human terms on anything we deal with - aliens standing for any subject of human 'discovering' and 'trying-to-make-subordinate' attitude (also intelligible). These themes are chiefly dealt with in the last two chapters, the first half of the book is a preparation of sorts. There's nothing special in most of what happens there: people live, get money, swear, drink, smoke, hit one another: just like in hundreds of stupid films. Still, we get the feeling that Red Shoehart is not just one of many tough guys who's gonna beat up the bad guy somewhere towards the end of the book. I liked the second part of the book much more, esp. the talk btw Pillman and Richard, and the last chapter.

About the film: I'm not sure about the English title, but in Russian and Polish it's 'Zona' (so maybe English Zone?) Tarkowski (the director, maybe also scriptwriter) is praised by many. However, I must put a disclaimer here. In Poland, this book was recommended by Mr Stanislaw Lem, who wrote 'Solaris', also filmmed by Tarkowski. Lem crticised both films for not conveying the message of the original, possibly also for some other things. Lem is a supreme authority in many fields, sci-fi books and futurology among them. I intend to provide my own assessment of the film; yet Lem's opinion should not be overlooked.

By the way, Lem's 'Solaris' has been just filmmed again - this time with Clooney, etc. I hope they haven't made it a complete crap.

Sincerely,
PiPBoY

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:22 pm

I can already see some mistakes in my last post

axelgreese · Post by **axelgreese** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:25 pm

PiP wrote:I can already see some mistakes in my last post

That's what edit button is for

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:42 pm

I'm a newbie, you see...

axelgreese · Post by **axelgreese** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:51 pm

PiP wrote:I'm a newbie, you see...

quite

Demon-X · Post by **Demon-X** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 11:01 pm

PiP wrote:I'm a newbie, you see...

I don't like the look o' you bwoy!

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 11:17 pm

Demon-X wrote:
PiP wrote:I'm a newbie, you see...

I don't like the look o' you bwoy!

stop looking then

or else some day you might see sth u really don't like, if you catch my drift. unless it's a joke: haha then.

Duck and Cover

Roadside Picnic

Roadside Picnic

Roadisde P., Zone, Stlaker

fuck

Re: fuck

thanks axelgreese

Re: thanks axelgreese

Re: thanks axelgreese

x-demon