Two Alien Reviews
Jun. 13th, 2012 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So I've blown through a couple of sci-fi stories about human interactions with mind-bogglingly powerful alien beings. One of them is 40 years old (thus still older than me, comma, dammit) and the other is out this month. So let's a take a look.
First up, the 40 year-old classic Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and translated by Olena Bormashenko. This comes to us straight out of Cold War Soviet Union and while the censors mean it couldn't take on issues the author's might have been interested in, these constraints do turn their focus to other, equally interesting questions.
The premise of the book is that one day aliens touched down in five different spots on Earth. Then they left leaving behind devastated Zones where physical laws often break down disastrously and which are littered with alien artifacts of various utility. So there's a bit of a race to get into the Zones and get out with these artifacts in an effort to advance mankind's understanding. There is also, not surprisingly, a group of enterprising daredevils called Stalkers who will sneak into the Zone and try to ferry out artifacts for sale on the black market. I assume![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solipsistnation has already read this as it's the basis for the Stalker PC game that came out a few years ago.
Anyway, the book follows a Stalker named Redrick Schuhrat -- usually called Red. We follow him over a span of several years as he sneaks into the Zone recovering various artifacts. The work is hard, dangerous and the effects of the Zone can linger well beyond your time inside. Despite all this, Red is continually drawn back there to pick up one more score. He needs the money to support his family and frankly, he's not super-qualified to do anything else. Eventually, he learns that a fabled wish-granting artifact might actually exist and he goes in after it.
The book was really enjoyable. It does an excellent job of sketching in the big picture details while lingering over Red's character and his interactions with the Zone. Red's not a square-jawed Science Hero or even a Stainless Steel Rat, he's just a guy with a knack for sneaking through an alien minefield and a taste for whiskey and money. He's got his principles, his morals, but confronted with the hidden dangers of the Zone, it all gets stripped away and he struggles to deal with the Zone and what it all means. Everything else is implied or inferred, you get quick glimpses of life beyond the boomtown near the Zone and how life has changed, but it's never addressed, it's not important.
Anyway, this is a great piece of low-key, thought-provoking sci-fi and people should take advantage of the new translation.
The second book is Harmony (alt.Human) by Keith Brooke. This book tries to address the Fermi Paradox -- the idea that if intelligent life is so likely to exist, why haven't they chatted us up yet? Um...the answer kinda sucks, but until the book decides to answer that question, the book is really pretty good.
So Earth has been overrun by aliens. All kinds of aliens, from snake-men and wookies, to gestalt amoebas, to unintelligible intelligences. Humanity gets pushed aside and they live in little ghetto areas around the major cities. In one of the human enclaves, a young man named Dodge helps his clan by sneaking into the city and stealing pids -- basically nanites in a person's bloodstream that identify who he is to the various guards and scanners all over the city. His clan boss brings him along on a job to help smuggle in four outsiders. Dodge will give them fake pids to let them pass into the city. This all goes pretty well but during the con, Dodge runs into a young woman who appears to have no pids at all. So he gives her a copy of the set he's using and they both manage to escape.
But the arrival of the girl has triggered an angry response from the aliens and slowly humans are eliminated. Sometimes they're rounded up and killed, sometimes they're bombed from the air, and sometimes entire ghettos are simply "unsung" from reality. Dodge and a handful of survivors abandon the city and head out for the near-mythic enclave known as Harmony where human rule themselves and live in peace. Perhaps they can find a way to make Earth safe for all humans once more.
This book is at its best when Dodge is in the city. The ways in which humans manage to eke out a living when confronted by a riot of ultra-advanced beings is interesting as are the alien's interactions with the humans. Luckily this takes up most of the book. Once they get on the road things start to die down a bit and when they reach Harmony things...well, things just end. To be fair, the resolution was not really contrived or stupid, it made some amount of sense, but it also really dodged the questions it was asking and it's not clear why it wasn't acted on sooner. At any rate, the ending was a bit of a let-down.
But, like I say, the time in the city was well spent and I've read much worse.
later
Tom
So I've blown through a couple of sci-fi stories about human interactions with mind-bogglingly powerful alien beings. One of them is 40 years old (thus still older than me, comma, dammit) and the other is out this month. So let's a take a look.
First up, the 40 year-old classic Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and translated by Olena Bormashenko. This comes to us straight out of Cold War Soviet Union and while the censors mean it couldn't take on issues the author's might have been interested in, these constraints do turn their focus to other, equally interesting questions.
The premise of the book is that one day aliens touched down in five different spots on Earth. Then they left leaving behind devastated Zones where physical laws often break down disastrously and which are littered with alien artifacts of various utility. So there's a bit of a race to get into the Zones and get out with these artifacts in an effort to advance mankind's understanding. There is also, not surprisingly, a group of enterprising daredevils called Stalkers who will sneak into the Zone and try to ferry out artifacts for sale on the black market. I assume
solipsistnation has already read this as it's the basis for the Stalker PC game that came out a few years ago.Anyway, the book follows a Stalker named Redrick Schuhrat -- usually called Red. We follow him over a span of several years as he sneaks into the Zone recovering various artifacts. The work is hard, dangerous and the effects of the Zone can linger well beyond your time inside. Despite all this, Red is continually drawn back there to pick up one more score. He needs the money to support his family and frankly, he's not super-qualified to do anything else. Eventually, he learns that a fabled wish-granting artifact might actually exist and he goes in after it.
The book was really enjoyable. It does an excellent job of sketching in the big picture details while lingering over Red's character and his interactions with the Zone. Red's not a square-jawed Science Hero or even a Stainless Steel Rat, he's just a guy with a knack for sneaking through an alien minefield and a taste for whiskey and money. He's got his principles, his morals, but confronted with the hidden dangers of the Zone, it all gets stripped away and he struggles to deal with the Zone and what it all means. Everything else is implied or inferred, you get quick glimpses of life beyond the boomtown near the Zone and how life has changed, but it's never addressed, it's not important.
Anyway, this is a great piece of low-key, thought-provoking sci-fi and people should take advantage of the new translation.
The second book is Harmony (alt.Human) by Keith Brooke. This book tries to address the Fermi Paradox -- the idea that if intelligent life is so likely to exist, why haven't they chatted us up yet? Um...the answer kinda sucks, but until the book decides to answer that question, the book is really pretty good.
So Earth has been overrun by aliens. All kinds of aliens, from snake-men and wookies, to gestalt amoebas, to unintelligible intelligences. Humanity gets pushed aside and they live in little ghetto areas around the major cities. In one of the human enclaves, a young man named Dodge helps his clan by sneaking into the city and stealing pids -- basically nanites in a person's bloodstream that identify who he is to the various guards and scanners all over the city. His clan boss brings him along on a job to help smuggle in four outsiders. Dodge will give them fake pids to let them pass into the city. This all goes pretty well but during the con, Dodge runs into a young woman who appears to have no pids at all. So he gives her a copy of the set he's using and they both manage to escape.
But the arrival of the girl has triggered an angry response from the aliens and slowly humans are eliminated. Sometimes they're rounded up and killed, sometimes they're bombed from the air, and sometimes entire ghettos are simply "unsung" from reality. Dodge and a handful of survivors abandon the city and head out for the near-mythic enclave known as Harmony where human rule themselves and live in peace. Perhaps they can find a way to make Earth safe for all humans once more.
This book is at its best when Dodge is in the city. The ways in which humans manage to eke out a living when confronted by a riot of ultra-advanced beings is interesting as are the alien's interactions with the humans. Luckily this takes up most of the book. Once they get on the road things start to die down a bit and when they reach Harmony things...well, things just end. To be fair, the resolution was not really contrived or stupid, it made some amount of sense, but it also really dodged the questions it was asking and it's not clear why it wasn't acted on sooner. At any rate, the ending was a bit of a let-down.
But, like I say, the time in the city was well spent and I've read much worse.
later
Tom
