39 pages • 1 hour read
Arkady StrugatskyRoadside Picnic
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1972A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
A radio correspondent based in the fictional Canadian city of Harmont interviews Dr. Valentine Pillman, the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Thirteen years ago, Harmont became one of six Zones around the world to experience a visitation event from extraterrestrials. While the alien presence departed before making contact with humanity, the extraterrestrials left behind a series of mysterious artifacts in each Visit Zone. Valentine receives his Nobel Prize for discovering that the six Zones’ positioning on the planet resembles bullet holes fired from a gun located between Earth and the Cygnus constellation.
As a representative for the International Institute of Extraterrestrial Cultures, Valentine works to keep unaffiliated individuals—in particular, a group of scavengers known as stalkers who scour for alien artifacts to sell on the black market—out of the Visit Zones. While many believe that the Zones contain scientific wonders that will change the course of human history, Valentine is extremely wary of these artifacts and skeptical of their scientific value.
Chapter 1 Summary
Redrick Schuhart is a 23-year-old laboratory assistant at the Harmont branch of the International Institute of Extraterrestrial Cultures. He obtained a job there two years ago after serving a six-month jail sentence for smuggling alien artifacts out of the Zone. Presently, he works under the brilliant Institute scientist Kirill Panov. Redrick spends much of his free time getting drunk at the Borscht, a local tavern. Although Redrick claims to have left his criminal lifestyle behind, he continues to moonlight as a stalker.
Despite Redrick’s tough exterior and total disregard for the Institute’s rules against stalking, he has a significant measure of respect and affection for Kirill. It pains Redrick to watch Kirill struggle with his latest project, an obsessive attempt to understand the gravity-defying properties of a seemingly indestructible Zone artifact known as “an empty.” In an effort to raise Kirill’s spirits, Redrick says he knows the location of a full empty “with some shit inside, blue stuff” (9). Delighted to hear this, Kirill schedules an official excursion into the Zone the following morning.
Because of the countless known and unknown dangers found in the Zone—along with the temptation of stealing artifacts for the black market—the Institute requires a third person to accompany Kirill and Redrick into the Zone: “Of course, fire, toxic gas, and bullets—these are only Earth perils. The Zone doesn’t have those; in the Zone you have other worries” (18). They pick a young man named Tender who is thrilled to enter the Zone with a legendary stalker like Redrick. In preparation for the trip, the three of them put on decontamination suits that are both bulletproof and fireproof but regrettably don’t allow Redrick easy access to his flask of vodka.
As the group embarks across the Zone barrier in a hovercraft, they ride through the Plague District, where “hell slime” bubbling beneath the foundations lights up abandoned houses. Everyone who lived in these houses contracted the plague, but only a few—mostly the elderly—died from it. After instructing Kirill to slow down, Redrick begins to throw nuts and bolts every few seconds in front of the hovercraft. This is an effort to detect bug traps, gravitational anomalies capable of crushing them.
The trio reaches the garage where the full empty is located. The only thing Redrick finds suspicious is that “something silver is sparkling at the back of the garage, near the canisters. That wasn’t there before” (28). The source of the silver sparkling looks like a cobweb to Redrick, though he has never seen a spider nor any other bug in the Zone. Although Redrick tells Kirill to avoid the cobweb, the garage is dark, and he forgets his eyes are better adjusted than Kirill’s. As they lift up the full empty, Kirill’s back touches the cobweb. Before loading the full empty onto the hovercraft, Redrick checks Kirill’s back and sees nothing. The return trip is much easier, as the programmed hovercraft follows the same route it used on the way into the Zone.
After undergoing decontamination protocols and showering, Redrick heads straight to the Borscht where he proceeds to get drunk with Richard Noonan, an engineer and entrepreneur who supplies equipment for the Institute. Many drinks later, Richard receives a call from the Institute informing him that Kirill died of a heart attack in the shower. Redrick immediately knows his death has something to do with the cobweb: “‘The Zone… The Zone…’ I see nothing but the silver cobweb. The whole bar is tangled in the cobweb, people are moving around, and the web crackles softly as they touch it” (51).
In his grief and drunkenness, Redrick takes a swing at the bartender, Ernest. The next thing he knows, Redrick is sitting in the bathroom with a bloody face. When he hears police sirens, Redrick sets off a terrible noise-inducing device called a shrieker and climbs out the bathroom window. On the way home, Redrick runs into his girlfriend, Guta. She tells Redrick she is pregnant with his baby. Despite the horrific mutations that result in children born to individuals who regularly enter the Zone, Guta says she refuses to have an abortion.
Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
As early as the book’s Introduction, Roadside Picnic differentiates itself from other books and films about alien visitations. In most stories of its kind, the visiting extraterrestrials take one of two postures toward humanity. For example, in media like H.G. Wells’s 1897 novel The War of the Worlds and the 1996 film Independence Day, aliens take an aggressive military or colonial stance toward Earthlings, hoping to conquer humanity either to enslave it or siphon off its resources. Meanwhile, in Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Ted Chiang’s 1998 novella “Story of Your Life,” the aliens take a benevolent, peaceful approach toward humanity, hoping to bestow their extraterrestrial knowledge and technology to Earthlings and to make a profound connection with another intelligent species.
And so it is significantly jarring for readers of Roadside Picnic to learn that the aliens pay so little attention to humanity that they don’t even bother to make contact. This surprises many of the Earthlings who inhabit the world of Roadside Picnic, but not the physicist Dr. Valentine Pillman. Valentine possesses no preconceptions or biases about an intelligent race that evolved light-years away, and is therefore unfazed by the aliens’ failure to communicate with humanity, assuming such communication is even possible. While scientists and philosophers ponder the meaning, purpose, and future implications of the Visit, Valentine remains amazed at the mere fact of the Visit itself. In the book’s introduction, Valentine tells the Harmont radio correspondent:
‘The fact of the Visit is not only the most important discovery of the last thirteen years, it’s the most important discovery in human history. It doesn’t matter […] where they came from, why they came, why they left so quickly, or where they’ve vanished to since. What matters is that we now know for sure: humanity is not alone in the universe’ (3).
By placing this quote so early in the book, the authors effectively dismiss notions of some big soap opera-style reveal regarding the aliens’ intentions.
With the aliens’ utter indifference to humanity in mind, this makes the countless terrors found in the Zone all the more disturbing. Rather than list these terrors at the outset, the authors slowly color in the perils of the Zone, thus creating a tremendous amount of suspense ahead of the ill-fated trek made by Redrick, Kirill, and Tender. Whatever dangers Redrick encounters in the Zone, they are far scarier to him than mere “Earth perils” (18) like third-degree burns and gunshot wounds.
This coy approach toward the Zone’s dangers continues once the group is in the Zone itself. Thanks to Redrick’s laser focus on simply getting out alive, he doesn’t have time to explain to Kirill and Tender the strange rituals he employs—like throwing nuts and bolts in front of their hovercraft—in order to keep them safe. This effectively puts the reader in Kirill’s shoes and renders the terrors found in the Zone all the more horrifying because they are largely unknown.
Redrick’s behavior even comes off as somewhat superstitious, like when he sees “that silver stuff” (29) in the corner of the garage. And yet, when Kirill dies of a sudden heart attack after coming into contact with the silver substance, it proves that a healthy dose of superstition is a necessary trait for a stalker to survive. It’s also what separates Redrick from the many scientists who convince themselves that the Visit can be solved as a purely scientific dilemma, poised to crumble at the feet of rational men’s formidable intellects. Unlike Redrick—and, for that matter, Valentine—scientists like Kirill forget the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and should be feared as such (Clarke, Arthur C. Profiles of the Future. New York: Harper & Row. 1973).
