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A review by skywhales
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
another foray into classic sci-fi. even introduced by ursula k le guin! (the version i read was). burned through this in a day. this is definitely a book that i think only got the score that it did because of my personal reading biases. i've never claimed to be an objective reader but at least i have the self awareness to recognize that i am not an objective reader. and i did get the major thing i wanted from this book anyway.
i was fascinated by this premise as soon as i heard about it. the idea of humans basically being a blip on the galactic scale. the cockroaches in the rest stop of the universe. aliens who just stopped by and left a bunch of weird shit around that no one knows how to clean up. the Science Fiction in this book was good. the world it created was gritty but interesting. this book's tone is...mostly depressing, pretty much all the way through. which i don't usually love in my normal reads but i already knew going in that in lots of ways this would be a departure from my normal reads. and despite the extreme open endedness of it (another thing i don't usually enjoy) the ending was very poignant, and i believe it'll be the thing that sticks with me the most from this book.
i know you can't judge older books by the standard of the modern era or whatever but god the sexism was a MAJOR factor that impacted my enjoyment of the book. every woman being someone's girlfriend or wife or daughter and reduced to a meaningless sex object or (in the monkey's case) a catalyst for growth from the protagonist. dina's one personality trait was getting called a slut by men fifteen years older than her. a man apparently has a running joke about SAVING HIMSELF FOR AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. the usage of "young men" vs "girls." my expectations were low but this went lower. yuck.
most of the characters were relatively unlikable, but that added to the grim and generally crappy world they lived in and didn't really turn me off from the book, since this isn't really the kind of thing i'm reading for great lovable character design.
in general i think the actual, central "roadside picnic" was the best and most engaging part of the story. i might have liked this better if it had been even shorter, like novella length, because then maybe they wouldn't have gone into detail on all the shit i disliked (the fucking misogyny) and centralized the stuff i read it for in the first place. but my regular disclaimer: maybe i'm just uncultured.
i was fascinated by this premise as soon as i heard about it. the idea of humans basically being a blip on the galactic scale. the cockroaches in the rest stop of the universe. aliens who just stopped by and left a bunch of weird shit around that no one knows how to clean up. the Science Fiction in this book was good. the world it created was gritty but interesting. this book's tone is...mostly depressing, pretty much all the way through. which i don't usually love in my normal reads but i already knew going in that in lots of ways this would be a departure from my normal reads. and despite the extreme open endedness of it (another thing i don't usually enjoy) the ending was very poignant, and i believe it'll be the thing that sticks with me the most from this book.
i know you can't judge older books by the standard of the modern era or whatever but god the sexism was a MAJOR factor that impacted my enjoyment of the book. every woman being someone's girlfriend or wife or daughter and reduced to a meaningless sex object or (in the monkey's case) a catalyst for growth from the protagonist. dina's one personality trait was getting called a slut by men fifteen years older than her. a man apparently has a running joke about SAVING HIMSELF FOR AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. the usage of "young men" vs "girls." my expectations were low but this went lower. yuck.
most of the characters were relatively unlikable, but that added to the grim and generally crappy world they lived in and didn't really turn me off from the book, since this isn't really the kind of thing i'm reading for great lovable character design.
in general i think the actual, central "roadside picnic" was the best and most engaging part of the story. i might have liked this better if it had been even shorter, like novella length, because then maybe they wouldn't have gone into detail on all the shit i disliked (the fucking misogyny) and centralized the stuff i read it for in the first place. but my regular disclaimer: maybe i'm just uncultured.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, and Alcohol
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Pedophilia