Jun 4, 2023
\nRead the ebook edition off Hoopla of Roadside Picnic, it is dated 2012 and contains the introduction by Le Guin. She points out that this book is a great example of non-heroic science fiction, no supermen, no geniuses, just a bunch of common people slogging through their reality. And slog they do, cursing, drinking, fighting, the Brothers Strugatsky render a world full of Russian “soul” circa 1971, cursed in various ways, to me like rebellious surfs. As she says “The protagonists of idea-stories are marionettes, but Red is a mensch. We care about him, and both his survival and his salvation are at stake. This is, after all, a Russian novel.”
\nI couldn’t put it down and interrupted other reading to finish it. I didn’t like the ending at first, but after a few days I realized it really couldn’t have been finished any better (and leaves open sequels which I haven’t located yet.)<\/p>\n
“Wait” said Valentine, “Listen, ‘You ask what makes man great?'” he quoted, “Is it that he re-created nature? That he harnessed the forces of almost cosmic-proportions? That, in a brief time, he has conquered the planet and opened a window onto the universe? No! It is that despite all this, he has survived and intends to keep doing so.”<\/p>\n
Thanks to those who went before me and posted about this excellent book.<\/p>\n
by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jun 4, 2023 Read the ebook edition off Hoopla of Roadside Picnic, it is dated 2012 and contains the introduction by Le Guin. She points out that this book is a great example of non-heroic science fiction, no supermen, no geniuses, just a bunch of common people slogging through their reality. And slog they do, … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4604],"tags":[4966,4967,4972,4969,4971,4970,4968,4660],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-sergneri","4":"post-5439","6":"format-standard","7":"category-what-i-read","8":"post_tag-arkady-strugatsky","9":"post_tag-boris-strugatsky","10":"post_tag-brothers-strugatsky","11":"post_tag-le-guin","12":"post_tag-non-heroic","13":"post_tag-non-heroic-science-fiction","14":"post_tag-roadside-picnic","15":"post_tag-science-fiction"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5440,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions\/5440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}