Warp these potentials into all-too-human goals - the quest for pure knowledge for its own sake, the search for new devices, new techniques, to achieve new heights in human well-being the striving for profit, with its associated competitiveness and the ravenous thirst for new and more terrible weapons - and you have the framework of this amazing short novel. The nature of these discards, products of an utterly alien technology, defies most earthly logic, to say nothing of earthly analytical science, and their potential is limitless. The Strugatskys posit that the Earth experiences a brief visit from extraterrestrials, who leave behind them - well, call it litter, such as might be left by you and me (in one of our less socially conscious moments) after a roadside picnic. The preface to the first English & First American edition was written by Theodore Sturgeon.

Their cannon of works illuminates the S-F world & their highlight is Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika translated masterfully by Antonina W. Certainly the most important of Soviet science-fiction writers are the brothers Strugatsky whose popularity extends throughout Europe & America. Rarely seen in any condition, this is a rare collectible copy. A brilliant example of the book which served as the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky's masterful 1979 film, 'Stalker,' for which the Strugatskys co-wrote the screenplay. A very fine, fresh example in a very fine bright dustwrapper. Quarter maroon cloth over blue paper covered boards, stamped silver at the spine. Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris (authors), Theodore Sturgeon (introduction).

Roadside picnic tale of the troika