Roadside Picnic

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· Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Robert Forster
4.8
42 reviews
Audiobook
7 hr 8 min
Unabridged
Eligible
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About this audiobook

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

Ratings and reviews

4.8
42 reviews
Santiago Perez
March 19, 2023
take a rubber film of science fiction, and stretch it razor thin over endless descriptions of smoking or wanting to smoke. sprinkle in laughable writing of female "characters" (ie sex objects), two black extras whose blackness the author assumes immediately conveys to the reader that they are thugs, and a giant spoonful of anger at....the man or something. if you are reading this because someone told you it is a classic, maybe it is, but for me it was an absolute chore to get through. I found the narration particularly unbearable
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Colby Sandin
April 9, 2022
This was an incredible experience, Robert Forster is an amazing narrator and I felt like I was watching a movie in my head until the very end. His tone and way of phrasing things gave me chills at all the right points. I'll forever have his voice stuck in my head as Redrick Schuhart. To hell with your zone! The book of course is a classic and the Strugatsky brothers will always be known as legends. If you're gonna listen to one science fiction audiobook let it be this one. Well worth the price. The doomed city is also awesome.
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Jen K
March 20, 2019
Great book! Robert Foster's narration is perfect-loved it enough to have listened to this audiobook twice so far.
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About the author

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the most famous and popular Russian writers of science fiction, and the authors of over 25 novels and novellas. Their books have been widely translated and have been made into a number of films. Arkady Strugatsky died in 1991.

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