skybridge

babewiththepower.bsky.social · @babewiththepower.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Roadside Picnic 6/10

From my understanding this book was going to be good about seeing the side of how humanity reacts to the visitation of aliens who seem to either not realize or not care about the existence of humans. In addition, this book was originally written during the Cold War in Russia and the copy I read was a restored version before the morality police got ahold of it and changed it. I guess as an example of how benign it really was pre-changes, I kept looking for something scandalous and shocking and never noticed anything. I didn't know what the changes might've been until I read the notes at the end by one of the two brother authors explaining the changes.<br/><br/>For the most part I found most of the story kind of boring, but one particular conversation caught my personal attention halfway through the book. It was a discussion about the application of human psychology to an alien race and arguing that there'd already been a failure in its application to other earth animals, so why use it in relation to aliens. In looking at aliens, what is intelligence? Alien intelligence/expectation is usually thought of in terms of human intelligence or what humans define as their own intelligence.<br/><br/>Meanwhile humans still can't decide what is human-like intelligence itself. One character suggested an "overpowering need for knowledge" while the person he's discussing this with argues "...the issue is that man, at least the average man, can easily overcome this need. In my opinion, the need doesn't exist a all. There's a need to understand, but that doesn't require knowledge. The God hypothesis, for example, allows you to have an unparalleled understanding of absolutely everything while knowing absolutely nothing...Give a man a highly simplified model of the world and interpret every event on the basis of this simple model. This approach requires no knowledge. A few rote formulas, plus some so-called intuition, some so-called practical acumen, and some so-called common sense."<br/><br/>Humans are left to wonder about the aliens by their leavings like the trash left behind after a roadside picnic, like forensic evidence (e.g. apple cores, candy wrappers, oil stains, bottles, wheel tracks, newspapers, coins etc). Who's to say they were even aware humans were present or if the aliens were aware that they cared. Like noticing a squirrel on a tree by the road while you picnic.<br/><br/>The optimist, however, might decide it's all a test! A puzzle for humans to figure out while the aliens observe humans puzzling and will spring out when humans figure it out. Meanwhile, in trying to figure out the puzzle, the leavings are used as human tech possibly in ways it was never intended.<br/><br/>There was a bit of a supernatural aspect to the story of returning corpses/zombies? There's even independent body parts acting like whole people. It wasn't covered a whole lot and to me it felt kind of tacked on, not well explained, and out of place. But with this supernatural aspect people who'd been present when the aliens visited are unable to leave to other towns because death and destruction begins to occur around them when they move away from a "Zone." Because of that they are then not allowed to emigrate. So the story is just a sad devolution of the people who were unfortunate enough to be in the Zone at the time of the visitation, unable to leave, unable to reproduce normally, and unable to live normally.<br/><br/>As for the chopping and editing by Russian editors, this story was originally published in the "Unintended Meetings" anthology. For some reason, this one story of the three in it was picked apart, picked up, dropped, etc back and forth for years to the point of exhaustion by the authors and where now the remaining living brother can't stand to even think about the story because of the hell they went through over it. The worst part is that the edits were over ridiculous things such as a person making angry or rude exclamations, using "mean" (as in "vulgur") words, or whether or not a person smoked.<br/><br/>Some quotes from the notes at the end of the book:<br/>"It was once said, and very rightly, that a man who is well brought-up may read anything. The only people who boggle at what is perfectly natural are those who are the worst swine and the finest experts in filth. In their utterly contemptible pseudo-morality they ignore the contents and madly attack the individual words." -Jaroslav Hašek (Czech humorist/anarchist)<br/><br/>"had nothing to do with ideology. They, those quintessential 'bloody fools' actually did think this way: that language must be as colorless, smooth, and glossy as possible and certainly shouldn't be at all coarse; that science fiction necessarily has to be fantastic and on no account should have anything to do with crude, observable, and brutal reality; that the reader must in general be protected from reality - let him live by daydreams, reveries, and beautiful incorporeal idea. The heroes of a novel shouldn't 'walk,' they should 'advance'; not talk but 'utter'; on no account 'yell' but only 'exclaim.'" A view widespread but shouldn't be held by anyone who influences the lit process.<br/><br/>Eight years, 14 letters to 'big' and 'little' Central Committees, 200 'degrading' corrections of the text. It finally got published, but in the author's words, it was a "Pyrrhic victory."

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Published 2026-08-18 18:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere