Roadside Picnic

I just read (1) Roadside Picnic (the book which "Stalker" game is based from). This was a page-turner! Fascinated by the science artifacts & effects (like gravitational glitches, frozen black sparks, etc) (2) "Childhood's End" by Arthur C Clarke (who wrote 2001 Space Odyssey) The sheer time scale of the story is impressive, and the technology is so interesting - especially for 1950s! There are some interesting time effects too (like an unborn child telepathically channeling information to a conversation in the past!)

i reread roadside picnic, and started reading it in russian and it is arguably my favourite book ever.

I caught up with some science fiction this year. The Murderbot diaries books by Martha Wells - 6/10. Mixed on these. They're fun to read. The setting is cool and the worldbuilding is shallow but effective (i.e., don't read it if you want game of thrones in space). Each novella takes an afternoon to read. I think "snarky violent droid" is overcooked these days and lost interest after book 5. Light by M. John Harrison - 7/10 excellent prose; great multiple-storyline plot; the journey was better than the destination, but it kept me thinking Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson - 7/10 Fun. If "near future Nigerian/British post-colonial frontier action with guns, robots, and psychic aliens" sounds cool to you, check it out. I liked his Rosewater Trilogy just as much. Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts - tough to rate these. brilliant ideas, VERY challenging plots. I wish I didn't get so confused by the end of each book.…

Easily these (so far): This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (actually now one of my all-time favorites, without regard to genre. Just amazing) Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky The Book of Strange New Things - Michael Faber Ted Chiang's short story collections (Exhalations and Stories of your life and others) Daemon - Daniel Suarez The City and the City - China Miéville Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (this one still haunts my dreams at times) We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) - Dennis Taylor (just finished this series for book club) Galatea 2.2, The Overstory, Bewilderment, The Gold Bug Variations - 4 different books, all by Richard Powers - what can I say, the man is a genius and a treasure Eifelheim - Michael Flynn - ok, this book can be a slog at times, but it is very rewarding for those who persevere, and has stuck in my brain for many years Chocky - John Wyndham - A quiet, delightful surprise Providence - Max Barry - This book flows like a movie. It will make a great movie. I found myself LITERALLY out of breath a couple of times Hench: A Novel - Natalie Zina Walschots - Quirky, memorable…

Many great books are already enumerated here. If I am not wrong, nobody mentioned Roadside picnic yet. Also liked Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by S. Lem.

Ah, the Strugatskys! Absolutely highly recommended. That was my favorite book of theirs as well.

If I were to choose three fiction, those would make the cut. Fiction: The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem - It shed light on me in regards to microelectronics, swarm intelligence. Nothing ever eased my learning curve more for genetic algorithms like this short novel! It is also a good read in general. It also taught me that the difference in scientific vs force vs emotional approach to unknown. Would recommend as a springboard from a day-to-day acitivities. Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky - a Soviet sf classic, I've read it 3x already. It tells a story about a closed zone where 'aliens' left their artifcats, and how that changed people around them. Ender's Game - I don't think there is an explanation needed. It is a total classic. It helps a lot to understand outsiders, not just aliens but a humans too. All of the above are either hard or soft sf.

Roadside Picnic. The third part, where the main character has grown old and his young practical cynicism has turned into cynicism by habit, and is upturned, really got to me.

Although very loosely Sci-Fi, there is the Russian classic of Roadside Picnic. One of my favorite books, and spawned some amazing derivative works down the line.

Just finished: — Roadside Picnic, by the Strugatsky brothers. The very thematic Soviet sci-fi behind STALKER. — The Cyberiad, by Stanislaw Lem. A brilliant collection of short stories on language, philosophy, futurism. Currently: — Nexus, by Ramez Naam (book 1 of 3). Nanobots meet augmented reality, transhumanism. Good. — Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut. Hilarious stuff. — Poe's collected works. Next: — The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu. I have my hopes high.

The Strangest Man - Graham Farmelo A biography of Paul Dirac. Very good. --------------- The Fabric of the Universe - David Deutsch What picture can we paint of the universe if we take together the best theories we have about fundamental things like time, life, virtual reality, cosmology etc. Easily the best book i've read in recent years. Consider that Deutsch is a very distinguished scientist in the field of quantum cryptography/computing. He is really good at explaining things in terms that non-physicists and experts alike can learn a lot! --------------- Roadside Picnic - Strugatzky Soviet Science Fiction book about the first and only visit of earth by aliens. The approach is very unusual since there is never any direct contact between humans and the extra terrestrial intelligence. The book is more like a study of human society and how it could develop if suddenly there was some extremely advanced technology available to us which we are too primitive to understand/control.