Roadside Picnic

This story was inventive and gripping! Due to its rocky publication history in the Soviet Union, it's quite possible that it didn't actually influence such works as [b:The Dark Tower 43615 The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220416l/43615.SY75.jpg 46575] series, [b:Annihilation 17934530 Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) Jeff VanderMeer https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403941587l/17934530.SX50.jpg 24946895], and Stranger Things, but the Strugatskys' vision of The Zone, full of wonders and nightmares, may be the most revolutionary and inventive evocation of these ideas.Looking in the opposite direction on our literary timeline, this would seem to owe a lot to H.P. Lovecraft (though I don't know if the authors read him): aliens who have no interest in humanity, and indeed may be so far beyond us that they missed our existence entirely during their visit; aliens who could be from another dimension, or more akin to demons, rather than your standard issue Martians (one artifact is literally called “hell-slime”); mysterious infective and mutagenic qualities that are never understood by the characters and never explained to the reader; all this adding up to an atmosphere of scientific curiosity overcome by creeping dread.The story doesn't coddle the reader - there's a quick journalistic interlude to give us an idea of what happened to create The Zone, and then we're off to the races, seeing it up close through the eyes of various characters, most notably Red Schuhart. Red is often relatable but far from virtuous, and most of the people around him inhabit shades of gray, giving the story texture and making it feel gritty and real, despite the dreamy aspects of The Zone. As we slowly glean information from the discussions of the area and its treasures, we get a picture of the cosmic, the political, and the personal colliding.There are a few irritants. The sexism grows more virulent as the story progresses, and only fails to overwhelm the story because the greatest example of misogyny here is the near-absence of women. We get glimpses of female characters only in relation to the men who are actually doing things, and the stereotypes are so hackneyed as to be self parody: the long-suffering wife who cooks and cleans and worries (but only silently!); the adorable daughter who needs protection; the secretary addressed as “my dear” and mollified by chocolates; and of course The Slut, whom Red dismisses as an empty shell even as he completes a creepily comprehensive inventory of her physical form.The racism is a little less in-your-face, again due to the dearth of characters of color, rather than any sensitivity. Black men appear in the background as lackeys and enforcers, and the one named character is a religious lunatic and drunkard.I found the last chapter to be utterly absorbing, but the finale to be a little abrupt. I admit this may be due to my copy having an extensive afterword, which led me to believe I still had about an hour of reading ahead of me as I approached the end of the story. Either way, I do think the ambiguity of the ending is pretty appropriate. There are no neat explanations or clear chains of cause and effect in The Zone.