A glimpse beyond The Veil, Torn Asunder

Holy shit, I just noticed that I hadn't posted this one.

Obviously,

Massive Spoilers ahead:

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     In issue 1 of The Veil, Torn Asunder we begin with our main character revealing his innermost desire. He says that that more than anything he wants the truth of his reality. The Truth above all.

 He confesses to us that he has been running away his whole life, hiding in drink, flesh and other assorted debauchery, and that he at one point even deserted from the army. These days when he isn't trying to find out the truth of existence in the musty old tomes of Yharnam's libraries he instead wanders its streets thinking about his past, frequently lingering on the moments after battle where the horrors surrounding him made him believe that there was no meaning and no truth to be found in life.

     But in contrast to this there is also another memory; a moment in his life where he witnessed a monster peering through a fracture in reality, and it is this improbable event that has in subsequent years come to seem more real than anything else. It is this that has spurred him on in his quest for the truth. And somewhere along the way to the end of the first issue he is given the Tarot reading which will guide the rest of the narrative.

     Now, though it might seem as if the Tarot deck doesn't have a place in Bloodborne, it of course does. In fact, the Tarot cards are in some way already present as The Caryll Runes, and there are pages and pages of discussion on the Bloodborne forums over which Tarot Card corresponds to which Caryll Rune, which ones don't fit or seem left out, but this is somewhat irrelevant as Ales Kot, for the purposes of this story, employs them only as they are originally used; as a guide which reveals some of what the future holds.

     The reading as it goes is: all upright; The Tower, the Moon, and in the end; the Star.

If you have any knowledge of Bloodborne at all, these cards will undoubtedly already summon up some associations, but again, this is not so much about what's already in place as it is about what Ales Kot makes of it. The Tower card traditionally means destruction, even though the tower here isn't ablaze. The Moon card signifies occluded things, deception and the hiding of truth. The Star points to enlightenment and contentment.

     Also, by the end of the issue the man has begun to come into contact with an entity that appears to manifest throughout various elements, both living and not. He smiles as he recognizes that this is some sort of echo of his vision beneath the water, a sign that shows him he's on the right track.

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     Issue 2 is appropriate for the Tower Upright as it is both about destruction and awakening, both figurative and, in this world that has layers of dreaming, very much literal. Though we don't know it yet, we start in echoes of the past, and then the man awakes inside a dream.

     The man finds himself on the streets of Yharnam, now clearly under the light of the Blood Moon, which means that the story and world have progressed ahead to the time when the game's protagonist is already tumbling down the rabbit-hole of insight, and stumbling around pants-less, is after a while confronted with a sight that will provoke a profound change in him.

     The Darkbeast Paarl and the One Reborn do battle.

It is interesting to note that in this issue that I have deemed the Tower card, the monster that shows up is the One Reborn who is most associated with the Tower Card on the forums, and that just like the tower in popular depictions of the card, he is struck by lightning, here present as the Darkbeast Paarl.

     And then something happens; the man seemingly disintegrates.

Now, it's very hard to understand the correct sequence of events of the Veil, Torn Asunder, because this moment, the start, the middle, and the aftermath, are spread out over the first 2 issues (and maybe also part of the third). Maybe this is because Ales Kot was too enamoured with the loose structure that Eileen the Crow's story provided and he wanted to use it here again, but I feel the story would've been better served with a more linear approach. Because unlike for Eileen in the Song of Crows, for the protagonist of The Veil, Torn Asunder, time only flows one way... or it should anyway.

     Upon witnessing the monsters the man's body disintegrates, or seems to disintegrate, burning up until only a familiar shape remains; an echo of the form first glimpsed in the water.

Metaphor and literal destruction both; the gaining of knowledge burns the man down, mind and body.

It's very hard to figure out how this could happen but it seems obvious that the key lies with the open-mouthed shape we have been seeing throughout the story. It is because of the nature of this entity that the man will gain the ability to cycle through various moments in the Bloodborne stories.

     As I have stated, this whole sequence is a dream, but the thing about dreams in the world of Bloodborne is that they aren't just dreams. They aren't less than the reality that engenders the dreaming. They are just other, different realities, pocket dimensions that can be slipped in and out of, given the right catalyst.

     Back in his room the man ponders, but the smell of shit and blood and stained sheets intrudes on his senses and he realizes that he needs to face reality. Issue 2 ends with whatever is left of the man's life in shredded tatters, blood coating the surface of the room he's in, and dripping from the edge of the razor he holds. His private story destroyed, now there's nothing to hold him back from his work, his quest for truth, and the only way left is the way forward.

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Issue 3 has as its Card the Moon, which is most commonly associated with deception and illusion,  and as we ended last issue with the destruction of his life, his story seemingly truncated in lovers' blood, and though he needs to face what is happening, because this is a character who has only ever run away from everything, he runs away again, and somehow he runs farther than he ever could have.

He becomes unmoored from his reality, and he becomes a witness to the burning of beasts in the streets of Yharnam.

He sees Hunters fighting the Cleric Beast.

He meets and talks with Eileen the Crow as she trudges trough the forest in A song of Crows.

He sees a Blood Moon over Byrgenwyrth and the streets of the Hypogean Gaol, and he sees the burning of Old Yharnam.

And he comes upon a scene of The Death of Sleep and shares a pity-filled look with the transformed child carried by the Nameless Hunter, who in this moment doesn't yet have the insight required to see both the madness around her, and in her arms.

But our protagonist does see the monsters. His insight in his reality has grown to such an extent that he can see the Elder Horrors that permeate his existence. Of course, given the Lovecraftian nature of the world of Bloodborne, madness walks hand in hand with the seeing, and so, he becomes truly unhinged. But you could also put it that since running away is what he does, what he's always done, he runs away from the knowledge he has gained and that he instead takes his refuge in insanity.

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And so we arrive at issue 4; The Star.

The Star is the card signifying spiritual enlightenment and contentment, and in the case of our main character it signifies the stage where he achieves his heart's desire; the attainment of his much sought-after ultimate truth.

     In the asylum our character lies, sheltered in insanity, having halted his quest for truth. But he is not the one to decide the direction nor the end of this story (or is he? Tum Tum Tum TUUUUUUM), and he is visited in his cell, first, by illusions seeking to perpetuate his private tale, then by the entity that has haunted him throughout the story, this time clothed in the skin of a dead man.

     The entity goads him on, and he is reminded of what knowledge means in the world of Blooborne, that it is gained by the seeing, and accumulation, of eyes, and he is told precisely what it means to cover those eyes up. 

     To be willfully blind in this universe is to choose to just be yet another in an innumerable succession of blind thralls, all in slave to an unfathomable design.

     It is at this point that the man begins to question what the entity wants from him specifically, why he has been pushed in a direction of the entity's design. He realizes that he himself has nothing to offer, nothing to say or reveal, no hidden knowledge to impart.

But then, intuitively, revelation dawns.

     Because of his unique point of view; a life lived, guided only by constantly running away, a constant escapism into anything but the thing he needs to confront, he understands the motivations of the unknown force that has guided him here. He understands that the only thing he's actually giving it is window to look through, a story to follow. Something to distract it from its own reality. He understands that there's nothing he really can offer, nothing except divertissement, and that all that he is, for this entity that dons dead men like clothes, is entertainment.

     At this point we realize that the narrative has become a Meta one, that it's been one all along, that the entity that keeps looking in on our protagonist is probably us, staring with open mouth at the horrors we witness, or that at the very least it is Ales Kot himself, the writer, trying to coax out a story out of a subject whose sole drive has been the discovery of the ultimate truth of his world. And problematic for both subject and writer, the ultimate truth that comes out of this, is that this particular revelation does not stop at the boundaries of the world of Bloodborne, and that it goes beyond its confines to make the audience, the world at large a part of the reveal. All of a sudden Yharnam has becomes a small place in quite a large tapestry.

The man realizes he is in a story, that he is a story and that the entity wishes him to continue on, to put on a show, as it were. But the man denies the formless watcher, and, not without some malice, acts according to his nature. He runs away again, by gauging out his eyes, and since this is Bloodborne, and eyes are here the symbol of knowledge, he takes away his knowing and the possibility of progress, and so denies the entity both the continuation and the conclusion to the story, who leaves and rears away from him.

Then, throughout this section Ales Kot, via our narrating protagonist, addresses us pretty much directly, berating us,for escaping into fiction, while all around us our world is being torn apart by awful forces. Take your pick: corruption, climate change, war, famine, pandemic, any and all, all these destructive forces and yet here we are, hiding away in our stories.

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"The truth is I spent my whole life running and called it conquest'."

A line from our protagonist that hits quite hard with me, a reader who doesn't venture outside much, adding books to my shelves only when I 'conquer' them, finish them. I constantly need to escape into stories, into fiction; books, comics, tv or games because I can not handle the world outside.
I read books, and I finish games, all to avoid interacting with the world. Behold my library and you can only glimpse but an inkling of the things my mind has seen. but the truth is that all I do is run away. Escapism rules supreme.

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A small thought here at the end. Part of a larger section that I scrapped because it didn't seem to add up the way I wanted, but there's a small chance there's something here anyway.

In this way it initially seems as if the Carryl runes did not actually have a place but it does bear noting that where in the previous 2 volumes (issues 5 to 12) the end of every issue was closed out by the same Caryll rune each time, and that in this volume every issue is instead closed out by another one: The Formless Oedon rune.

A secret symbol left by Caryll, runesmith of Byrgenwerth.

The Great One Oedon, lacking form, exists only in voice, and is symbolized by this rune.

Those who memorize it enjoy a larger supply of Quicksilver Bullets.

Human or no, the oozing blood is a medium of the highest grade, and the essence of the formless Great One. Both Oedon, and his inadvertent worshippers, surreptitiously seek the precious blood.

Could Formless Oedon be in the meta way suggested in the story, be the creators that work on the stories of Bloodborne. Could the shade with hollow mouth be a form taken on temporarily to work their will? The artist's will made /almost/ physically manifest?

Bloodborne: The Veil, Torn Asunder

Bloodborne: The Veil, Torn Asunder is the fourth and (for now) final volume of the Bloodborne comic series. And it's a pretty damn good one, but just like the previous volume, A Song of Crows, it doesn't stand well on its own. The Veil, Torn Asunder actually goes a step further than Eileen the Crow's outing and requires the reader to be familiar with not just the Bloodborne universe but also every Bloodborne comic that precedes it. And even then, with all that, and even if you're well-versed in the available lore, you're still going to have to delve quite a bit in order to figure out what is actually going on here.

A man walks the streets of the city of Yharnam, haunted by a singular moment in his past, a moment where the veil of reality itself tore apart, and where it seemed as if something monstrous stared back through the breach. Convinced that what he saw was real, the man resolves to understand the truth of the shapeless form that once met his gaze, and while the Blood Moon rises he relinquishes his hold on reality in a desperate bid for the truth.

But in this nightmare world, too much truth can very well drive one insane. 

Under the guise of one man's search for the ultimate truth of his world, writer Ales Kot delivers a story that is ostensibly somewhat lacking in plot, but that nonetheless satisfies as it delivers some awesome gothic horror-artwork and an intriguing mystery hidden behind an experimental meta-narrative.

I really quite enjoyed this one, but it was an enjoyment borne rather from trying to figure out what the story was actually doing when the read was over than any kind of immediate gratification during the read itself. Awesome art is great to look at, but if the cohesion and natural progression of the story they depict between them is missing, when you don't know what the hell is actually happening, then the story can be as well thought out as can be, it'll be very hard to give it its due. And this is where that figuring-out comes in, because it is pretty hard to grasp The Veil, Torn Asunder unless one has a lot of knowledge of the things Ales Kot brings into this story.

Which is why I'm going to go into exquisite detail in the next post.

Death Stranding

Done, You Bastard.

I both Loved and Absolutely Hated this thing. And I really hope Kojima gets reined in somewhat in future games; because despite of how many hours I spent on it, despite of how awesome some stuff was, despite how intricate the world and lore was, how correct the mechanics were implemented... There was also too much frustration to make this game anything but an annoying memory.

Got the platinum though.

Let me show you exactly what I mean when I say this game is frustrating.

In this mission you have to carry someone on your back from one part of the map to the other.

There's a lot of stress here, and in this particular clip I had just gotten through an area where some enemies had attacked me. I was just trying to get to an area that was far enough away for me to save my game.

Though I laughed out loud at the time, the situation wasn't so funny that I didn't have to re-load an earlier save to undo the damage. There were a lot of times where there was no fun to the fucking-up at all.

But then, as annoying as the game is, I also remember talking to my sister about the story and various events in the game, and what I was describing didn't come across as anything less than spectacularly awesome.

And it is, it really is, Death Stranding is pretty awesome.

But. Even keeping scenes like the above in mind: I hope there won't be another game like it.

Because the 'game' aspect of Death Stranding was the most annoying thing I've played in years.

Great story, awesome moments, okay soundtrack, jaw-dropping perfomances, but My God, such annoying, frustrating, scream-out-loud gameplay: this is Death Stranding in a nutshell.

And Kojima wants to do a game about Artificial Intelligence next?

Oh God.

November Update

     Hello there, it's been a while! Been sick and lazy and all that. My month's been filled with sitting in front of the television, in a sick slouch or not, and hammering away at Fallout 4, Blasphemous and Dead Rising 4. Good games, although both the first and the last swiftly deteriorated into vapid busywork. Blasphmous, though initially not really my type of game, being a side-scroller, had an art-style and a type of lore that I loved and so I stuck it out and ended up having a blast. Here, take a look at the launch trailer.

     But, I've been wasting a lot of time this month, or so it feels. The truth is that I'm very out of sorts. So out of sorts that I have not much thought about blogging for these past few weeks, and on those times that I did, I had the damnedest difficulties in actually writing anything I was pleased with. Whether or not that any of this is due to not having imbibed any alcohol for nigh on a month or whether that it is because of a delayed reaction to the events that transpired earlier this year I don't know. Either way; this blog continues, I'm not here to announce my retirement. But I am saying that:... what the fuck man, why is this so difficult right now?
I'm annoyed and saddened that something that I could devote so much of my time and energy on has been delegated to a position of lesser import.

     I have been reading again though. There were maybe 2 weeks where I barely read a thing because of a very annoying slow-burn cold that took root in my brain, but since then I've finished a few comics, Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence, and a whole bunch of Jules De Grandin short stories.
     Of those, the one that I both want and don't want to talk about is the Imago Sequence.
You see, after a great start, specifically after The Procession of the Black Sloth, which read like a weird and terrifying Asian Silent Hill- kind of story, I was all set to proclaim Barron now one of my favourite authors, but then the last 2 or three stories in the collection veered a little too much into an abstract type of writing that is almost dis-associative free-form, and which, if you're not in the mood for it, is irritating in the extreme.
     I've indulged in that type of writing myself in the past, usually in the throes of depression or some or other violent passion, and it's quite an empowering form of art-making. You feel as if you are creating something truly impressive, and it's something that seems to validate itself, even if or maybe even because some or all of the audience that'll read it won't understand what you're talking about. There's a barrier there, and not everyone can slip past it. It's a form of magic, of perception.
But, as I said, it kind of sucks when you're not in the mood for it. Sometimes the chemical brain just doesn't care to cooperate; lack of sleep, nutrition, or being at the whim of emotional circumstance.
     So, though I loved Procession of the Black Sloth, and can recommend anyone to read that one, though Old Virginia, Shiva Open Your Eye, and Bulldozer were all bad-ass and very enjoyable to read, I didn't much enjoy The Royal Zoo is Closed, the latter half of the Imago Sequence short story, and though I thought that both Parallax, Hallucigenia and Proboscis were a little unoriginal, and though after all that, it seems like I didn't have a good time, I did actually appreciate pretty much of all that I read.
     I'm being unduly harsh here, and I wish the stories could've hit me at a better time maybe, but it is what it is.

     I also finally finished off Hunter X Hunter, which I pretty much only allowed myself to watch whilst exercising on my Home Trainer. At 148 episodes for 20-23 minutes per episode, it took me about 8 months of exercising before I'd gone through the whole bunch.
I had a good time. Hunter Hunter is a show not without its flaws but one that has some real nice emotional pay off.

     Lastly, it was my birthday this month and, as you might've expected, I replied to everyone that asked for gift ideas to just go and give me books, as if I didn't already have enough to read. What can you do? An addict is as an addict does, or something. I'll give you a look next post.

Dead Space: The Comics

I used to be a big fan of the Dead Space games and so it is with a very particular kind of loathing that I look at EA these days as it is 'the worst gaming company in america' for a reason. After all they were the ones who cannibalized Visceral Games, the company that made besides Dead Space also another one of my other favourite horror games; Dante's Inferno. Electronic Arts is the Beast Planet of video game companies, swallowing them whole and chewing them down for a profit. And then they even have the temerity to say that they think they don't deserve the title. Absolute scum.

Anyway.
     There are three Dead Space Comics;

     The original one, the one I took pictures and scans of, which chronicles the events before the beginning of the first game in 6 issues, and which also has the Extraction one-shot lumped in the back of the volume, and which follows around the wife of the games' protagonist in the time before the outbreak began and she sent her husband the fateful video log that opens the first game. Both stories were written by Anthony Johnston and have art by Ben Templesmith whose style I absolutely love the shit out of. Dead Space untitled is far and away the best of the 3 Dead Space comics and the only one that is actually worth both your and my time.

     The second one is Dead Space Salvage, and follows a group of scavengers called the Magpies as they stumble on the USG Ishimura which is drifting in space following the events of Dead Space 1.

     Anthony Johnston is on writing duty once again, but art this time is by Christopher Shy, and in my opinion it's a tumble down some stairs in quality after Templesmith's really quite glorious art. But the stories aren't exactly connected and so it doesn't matter much. By the Way, as an aside, Dead Space Salvage is collected in a single volume, but there's multiple editions out and some of those are presented as Salvage volume 2, so don't be taken in like I was and buy the same damn thing twice.


     Third and Last is Dead Space Liberaton which takes place before the events of Dead Space 3 and which focuses on telling the story of John Carver, the optional co-op partner players could play as in the ill-fated last game.
     Ian Edginton on writing this time and it is horrible, which I was a little surprised by as I've read a lot of by him and he usually isn't this bad. And though Christopher Shy is back again, his work here is more streamlined than in the previous volume, but still is terribly uninspired, ugly-looking and at times impossible to understand.
     I kind of despise this type of photo-realistic art in general as frequently it's too vague to make out what's going on and the whole thing just can't help coming off as cheap and rushed, even though there's a lot of work that's gone into it. It's quite honestly an art style I wish would go away, period , so I'm not going to talk about either salvage and Liberation and just stick to The first comic, which is actually really damn good and worth a purchase; provided you get a copy that doesn't fall apart in your hands, that is: Titan comics sometimes stints a bit on the quality of their trade paperbacks.

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     The comic opens up with extended character profiles that serve to flesh out our protagonists, and generally immerse the reader in the universe of Dead Space.

Yes, made a horrible scan here, but meh.

     It might seem cheap, rushed or indicative of bad writing, but I actually really appreciated it. It does give you more of a handle on the characters we're about to meet, if you're willing to take the time. And you should, because this story deserves patience and attention, especially as it's been some years since the games, and the profiles manage to sketch some of the greater in-universe events and lore in pretty quick strokes; the reader is reminded of the Church of Unitology, the various populated planets, various incidents of rebellion and the fact that this universe is one that has some pretty cool technology. Then we proceed and arrive at this hilarious bit of Templesmith genius:

     This'll be where this story ends, we are given a teaser of the ending in order to hook us into the story, which is probably necessary for a lot of the audience because a lot of the next 4 issues is build up, people talking and interacting with each other, which would be boring if one has the attention of a fish, but it is rather interesting for those of us who appreciate build-up and good character writing.

Did I mention that I think this comic's really really good?

     Then, the hook sunk in, we double back to the beginning, to a point in time that kicks off the whole mess of violence and insanity:

The finding of the Marker.

     The same one that is prophesied in the religion of Dead Space's Church of Unitology.

I'm vague on the whole lore aspect to the markers at this point, but it's good enough to know that this thing means a whole lot of trouble.

     In the weeks before the finding of the Marker the entire mining colony has become plagued by nightmares and the normally quite rare incidents of violence have substantially increased.

     And when the revelation that this holy object has been found becomes known to the numerous Unitologist members of the crew, tempers quickly begin to fray.

Up until this point the members of the church of Unitology had always been met with derision, scorn or outright persecution, and when they realize that the people in charge are hiding something so integral to their belief, something that has the possibility to validate their religion, unrest breaks out.

     But besides the civil unrest, there are other problems too; strange things are growing in the colony's tunnels, the dreams worsen, and members of the crew begin to see dead family members who warn of impending doom.

     It swiftly becomes apparent that command had good reason to hide the Marker's existence from the crew, that the Marker itself is dangerous to human life, but with the cat already out of the bag, and the obelisk already working on the minds of the entire crew things take their inevitable course and people begin to die.

Everything escalates pretty damn quickly actually.

   There's a few awesome moments in here, some of the big events hitting quite hard, but the most shocking thing is how quickly our characters start to bite the dust when push comes to shove.

  

   Also, it's a bit surprising, but the Necromorphs show up quite late here, and they're not the comic's focus so much as are the Unitologists, and how they react and the decisions they make.

     But then when finally do show up the true carnage begins. and it happens crazy fast.

     The game made it clear that these things were fast and terrifyingly dangerous, and that untrained and unarmed personnel simply didn't stand a chance, and so there's really only one way this thing can go.

     And we always knew that this is how it would go, since the colony isn't really a factor when Dead Space 1 begins, but at the very least Johnston and Templesmith deliver their story well enough, and have made their characters interesting and likable enough, that it never becomes disappointing or trite.  It's an awesome comic, well worth a read.

     And to tease you further into this universe, take a quick look at the trailer that originally drew me in way back when. It's pretty much perfect, and still on of my all-time favourite trailers.

Damn, I miss Dead Space.

Roadside Picnic and The Russian Nuclear Apocalypse

Roadside Picnic is one of those novels that, if you aren't an avid science-fiction reader, you might not have heard about but one whose impact has been rather noticable in a lot of fiction that came after it, most notably, these days, the Russian post-apocalyptic Metro series, of which the third game; Metro Exodus is proving to be a blast. After some initial misgivings I now have almost no complaints. Except, really: Fuck that car, although I did run into an amusing glitch with it.

Though the Roadside Picnic influence has diminished with each iteration of the series, there is still an occasional floating electrical anomaly to be found and the 'Stalker' nomenclature is still (barely) in use, but beyond that, the story has moved away from the strangeness to be found in Roadside Picnic and has instead embraced the more approachable nuclear apocalyptic concept so favoured by the masses (though I swear I haven't been irradiated in hours). It's a bit of a shame as I thought this was something the series did incredibly well, where it married the anomaly elements with the nuclear fallout stuff, and which gave the whole thing a rather unique feel.

 Right now, where I'm at, in the Caspian sea, the game has become to feel more Mad Max than what I had come to term 'the Russian Post-Apocalypse'. It's not in any way bad, but I still feel as if the series has been... diminished somewhat, become somewhat more conform, catering more to the mainstream and losing its uniqueness along the way.

Before Metro, there was the Stalker series, heavily inspired by the movie of the same name, and both of which carried the influence of Roadside Picnic much more on its sleeve. And indeed, even now the Stalker movie, 40 years after its release, is still worth a watch if you're into weird and moody (I know I am). In any case, it is a classic of Russian cinema and is nr 185 on Imdb's top 250 movies.
The Stalker game series is notable in that it did away with the origins behind the novel's 'Zone concept', and that it explicitly ties the Zone's creation to the Chernobyl disaster. And if you have been living under a rock, or in a fall-out shelter, and are unware of it, the recent HBO mini-series Chernobyl is a very good way to brush up on your history. It's very well researched, impeccably shot and scored, the acting is compelling, and the overall effect of the thing is just... devastating.

There is such a sense of doom hanging over every scene of the series that it becomes almost oppressive. And as you watch the various characters; the scientists and engineers, the firefighters, the miners, the soldiers and others, get closer and closer to the scene of the incident you are acutely aware of their inevitable fate, which you then also get to see. And if you've been amused by the response from Russia to the show itself, where they've announced that they'll be making their own show according to the 'true' story behind the incident; when you watch in the show how the government deals with some of the consequences to the disaster, and how they press down on the spread of information concerning the danger, in order to uphold their reputation, it's not hard to understand their response to the show, but it also is quite scary.
Chernobyl is horrifying and even depressing, but it is honestly a must watch. It's only 5 episodes, less than 5 hours in total. There really is no reason not to watch it, and you'll be richer for it.
Anyway, I got a little off track here, but I thought I'd share the reasons for why I searched out the novel before I write about it. I've been reading and watching Roadside Picnic-influenced fiction for at least a decade now, so I thought I'd go ahead and give it a whirl. And it turned out to be an awesome and very compelling read.

Redrick Schuhart is a Stalker, one of those individuals who risk their lives and their sanity by making harrowing treks into 'The Zone', the off-limits area riddled with the detritus left behind by a visiting alien race, the place that they left behind where the laws of the natural world, of reality itself, don't always apply. It is a dangerous and inhospitable place, likely to kill a man as soon as he sets foot inside its boundaries, but it is also a place filled with wonder and riches.

Inscrutable and even dangerous as these riches might prove to be, they command improbable sums from the black marketeers who profit off of them, who sell them to scientists or simply to those who have enough money, and so there are many who venture into danger for a taste of the wealth. But there are not many to last long in the strange and lethal environment.

Over the fifteen years since the aliens' Visit, many legends have sprung up surrounding the strange phenomena to be found. The strangest of which is 'The Sphere', an object capable of granting the beholder their most innermost wish. And though Redrick has lasted longer than any other Stalker in the Zone, due to his almost preternatural sense of the dangers ahead and a ruthless pragmatism, he'll soon feel himself forced to seek out the very strangest and most dangerous of what the Zone has to offer in order to have his most desperate wish fulfilled.

Roadside Picnic is a very engaging  novel, its bad-ass, down-to-earth protagonist easily drawing the reader into his views and his world, swearing at the stupidity and greed of mankind all the while. The novel is divided into 4 parts over a few years time, and we see Redrick, usually from his point of view, as he travels into the Zone and navigates its dangers and deals with his resulting stress, fear and anger. We watch as he tries to outrun the bad consequences of his excursions, or as he deals with the upheaval caused by the influence of the zone, be that the mutations and the resurrected dead, or the police force determined to arrest the various stalkers.
We see his concerns and understand his lamentation for mankind's condition, as he tries to bury his loathing for its incurable greed, and the hate he carries for perpetuating it. He is a good man, strong, outspoken and intelligent, kind but capable of extreme ruthlessness.
It's very strange, because I'm usually not a character person, but I found Redrick fascinating, enviable even, and I honestly would've loved it if this whole story had been longer. Not even fully through the novel I found myself wishing there had been a few hundred pages more.
Apart from Redrick, the Zone itself is also a huge draw, of course. The horrifying and wildly varied anomalies and objects to be found within its perimeter were hugely inventive and colourful.
The last part of the novel has some odd beats, specifically; it ends in one of those dialogue endings that can be hit or definite miss and which I'm usually quite annoyed by. It's a testament to the novel that I didn't mind this one, as it left much food for thought, not simply in what Redrick says, but also in the situation that he's in when the novel ends, both physically and psychologically. It's unclear, and though the back-blurb to this edition makes it seem pretty definitive, I didn't think this was the case. Or, at the very least, I didn't want it to be.
As I said, I really wish this one had been longer. Very much recommended.