Red Mosquito

Simple Torture wrote:2009, 2014...I'm a little early for this re-read, but here it goes:

Spoiler: show

Simple Torture wrote:

Simple Torture wrote:2009, 2014...I'm a little early for this re-read, but here it goes:

Spoiler: show

I've barely had time to read recently (my biggest chunks are when I work late and work slows down after 7:00PM), but I do feel like it's important to pop in and mention how much I love this fucking book. It's so easy to slide into and read even just a little bit; each section, even the paragraph-long ones, are full of good stuff.

Simple Torture wrote:I haven't; tell me about it!

Simple Torture wrote:Actually, don't bother: I saw "science fiction detective novel" on Wikipedia and I am in.

durdencommatyler wrote:

bune wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:

I love these guys.

bune wrote:
Roadside Picnic is a book in the same vein as the Area X trilogy where aliens come to visit and you (the people in the story) are left wondering wtf just happened. It's about the unknowable truly alien encounters and how society deals with them with more government, more money, and the black market. It was read by Robert Forster and he did a pretty good job with it, I got a lot more out of it this time than when I read it myself.

bune wrote:

bune wrote:
Roadside Picnic is a book in the same vein as the Area X trilogy where aliens come to visit and you (the people in the story) are left wondering wtf just happened. It's about the unknowable truly alien encounters and how society deals with them with more government, more money, and the black market. It was read by Robert Forster and he did a pretty good job with it, I got a lot more out of it this time than when I read it myself.

Definitely check this one out next. Don't watch the movie first because the movie veers a bit but also cuts out several story lines for time. But once you finish you should certainly watch it because it's an amazing piece of film.

While not a direct adaptation, the video game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is heavily influenced by Roadside Picnic. The first game in the series, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, references many important plot points from the book, such as the wish granter and the unknown force blocking the path to the center of the zone. It also contains elements such as anomalies and artifacts that are similar to those described in the book, but that are created by a supernatural ecological disaster, not by alien visitors. A few characters are also very similar to those in books.

The book is referenced in the post-apocalyptic video game Metro 2033. A character shuffles through a shelf of books in a ruined library and finds Roadside Picnic. He states that it is "something familiar". Metro 2033 was created by individuals who had worked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. before founding their own video game development company, and both the developers of the game and the author of the book it was adapted from were inspired by Roadside Picnic and by the "stalker" subculture it spawned.