"Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

If you like sci-fi, you must have heard of the film and video game Stalker. Roadside Picnic was the basis for both. In fact, the Strugatsky brothers also wrote the screenplay for the movie adaption, but lots of things were changed during the filming.

What I find fascinating about this now truly iconic novella is the premise that some sort of aliens pass through our planet and merely stop to have "a roadside picnic". They leave behind a bunch of picnic leftovers (trash) and move on. They don't look to wipe us out or to conquer. We do not make any kind of contact with an alien species. Instead, the earth now has several "zones" where this alien trash wreaks havoc on the environment. Stalkers are basically smugglers, adventurous die-hards who sneak into the zone and carry out alien "swag" that humans then re-purpose for use in everyday life. Some of it is useful (e.g. never-dying batteries), some - we do not understand at all. But ultimately, as one of the characters aptly puts it, we might be just using their microscopes as hammers.

Of course, this being a Russian novel, written in 1970 during the height of the Cold War, there are lots of political and philosophical undercurrents readers will enjoy deciphering. Let's begin with the term the Zone. In the book, this is the area where anomalies are at their strongest and where alien tech can be smuggled from. It is fraught with danger and yet, Stalkers cannot resist its pull. This addiction to getting an adrenaline rush like no other is one reason our main character Red keeps going into the Zone. In Russian, the term Zona (the Zone) is a widely used slang term for prison, or labor camp. Our character keeps going there, risking his life, but also constantly seeking some higher meaning. He asserts in the last chapter that he never sold his soul. You can read this to mean that people get imprisoned for being true to themselves, for standing up for what is right, for not giving up on their principles.

The theme of finding truth in the Zone is particularly palpable in the film. The Zone is the only thing that is in color. Outside of it, the movie is monochrome. The characters look like prisoners with their shorn hair and shapeless clothes. Also, in the film, the three people venturing into the zone are: the smuggler, the writer and the professor. Most Soviet political prisoners were intelligentsia (writers, scientists and other intellectuals), and people re-presenting anti-establishment, i.e. the smugglers, those who distributed western music, banned literature, and other "anti-soviet" merchandise.

Roadside Picnic is also eerily prophetic if you view the Zone as an epicenter of an ecological disaster. When the book was being written, the Chernobyl disaster was still 16 years in the future. But reading the novel, the abandoned city of Chernobyl is what kept coming to my mind, and I did not even know that Chernobyl is prominently featured in the Stalker video games!

Overall, a great piece of Sci-Fi. I highly recommend it. 5 out of 5 stars.

"Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond

Lack of social safety net for its citizens is the sad truth about the US which I struggle to understand. Desmond's book is the result of his research focused on the rental market in Milwaukee. Specifically, he is zeroing in on the poorest tenants (both black and white), most of them are on SSI, who rent barely livable properties and yet spend 70 to 80% of their monthly income on rent.

Extreme poverty in the United States is real, and yet, as a society, we choose to do nothing about it. In fact, we close our eyes to it. We avoid those neighborhoods, we do not hear about them on the news (unless a shooting is reported), and our politicians definitely do not feel any urgency to deal with this crisis.

For an average middle or upper class American, it is easy to think that "those people" are just lazy, they don't want to work, or live in poverty by choice. In Desmond's book, all the people he comes in contact with struggle from some sort of mental or physical illness. There are single mothers whose husbands/boyfriends are in prison or simply absent. There is addiction, domestic violence and child abuse. On top of all that, they have trouble keeping a roof over their heads. Children are constantly forced to change schools (if they even go to school!). Basic survival and constant need to deal with one desperate situation after another is the daily reality for these families.

This book had a huge emotional impact on me. It is a required reading for the incoming freshman class at the University where I work, and I think it is a great choice for young people to read and discuss. In fact, this should be a required reading for all Americans. I want to think that all of us are by nature compassionate and able to emphasize with others. As one of the richest countries in the world, how can we allow such extreme poverty and desperation to exist right around the corner?

Re-Reading Classics: “Emma” and “Persuasion” by Jane Austen

Continuing my project of re-reading some favorite classics, including among others, Jane Austen, I have recently finished her Persuasion and Emma. Neither one stood out to me when I first read them 20 years ago. In fact, I barely remembered the plots of both of these novels. On the second re-read, my much older self definitely preferred Emma. 

To me, Emma seems much more relatable and real. She is vivacious, fiercely loyal to her family and friends, but also young and naive. Her lack of experience is seen in mistakes she makes about people’s dispositions and attachments. She thinks she knows what she wants in life (never to marry and always remain the mistress of Hartfield). She is also sure which male acquaintance admires her particular friend Harriet Smith. She makes blunder after blunder, until she finally sees the depth of her own misjudgment and learns to listen to and understand her own heart.

In contrast, Anne in Persuasion is older, sadder and wiser than Emma. She’s been deeply disappointed in love and is thus very cautious about attachments. Anne is level-headed and good, a true lady in conduct and intentions. I did enjoy Persuasion very much. But of the two, Emma was more to my taste.

Both novels have unforgettable casts of great characters and Austen’s signature humor and keen observations on manners and morals of the day. I did like both novels and rated them 5 out of 5 stars. I also watched the BBC four-part series Emma and highly recommend it.

"Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik

Spinning Silver is Naomi Novik's newest fantasy novel inspired by Eastern European folklore. It is a stand alone and has nothing to do with her previous novel Uprooted. We follow three female heroines: Miryem, a daughter of a Jewish moneylender, Wanda, a peasant girl who lives with her two brothers and an abusive father, and Irina, a daughter of a duke who's been nothing but a disappointment to her father.

There are also two opposing magical forces in the novel: the Staryk, or winter people, who bring cold and snow to the country of Lithvas, and a fire demon who possesses the tsar and sustains itself by devouring others. Our three heroines get caught in the middle of this epic conflict and must overcome numerous challenges to survive and keep their loved ones safe.

What I love about Novik's characters is that they are ordinary girls. None of them are beautiful or have super powers. They must rely on their natural talents, strength and ingenuity to outwit the magical beings. Moreover, Novik basically equates overcoming of challenges through natural talent and intelligence alone to having magical superpowers. She says in the novel: "A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so." The magic that Wanda and Irina experience comes to them from the love of their mothers - I just loved that. Wanda's mother is able to restore Sergey to health and Irina discovers a talent she received from her mother that helps hide from the fire monster.

I also loved the way Novik tackled antisemitism in her novel. The danger, bigotry and hatred that surround Miryem and her family are palpable. It was so good to see her as the ultimate hero in the novel.

Novik's writing itself is akin to spinning. Her narrative is meticulous and unrushed. It takes detours, provides glimpses into scenery and is overall more like looking at pictures than reading words. You could imagine an old woman spinning wool by the stove and slowly telling this tale to kids.

Her story line is very well constructed and everything in it is logical. There are no miraculous rescues or sudden changes of rules. Her characters have to work hard and the way magic works continues to be logical to the very end. The reader thus never feels cheated or tricked. There is also no instant love in this story. In fact. the only kind of love present for most of the novel is love of family and your own people. Respect and deep romantic love need to be earned in Novik's universe and thus feel more authentic and worth having.

This story is multi-layered and each character deserves to be discussed in their own right. This would make a great pick for a book club or any sort of discussion group. Spinning Silver is a definite new favorite of mine. 5 out of 5 stars.