Stalker

I've always dreamed of a good film adaptation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Since childhood, I was wildly fascinated by the zone... I was interested in the brain burner, the wish granter, bloodsuckers, zombies... radiation.
But I never even wondered - where did all this come from!?

Until I read “Roadside Picnic” by the Strugatsky brothers...

The story itself caused me an explosion of emotions and triggered a bunch of internal rethinking.
This is truly a very beautiful, light and powerful literary work of global scale.

The Natanovich brothers, while walking in nature in Komarovo, discovered the remains of a picnic... plastic cutlery, cups, napkins, newspapers, pieces of paper scattered on the ground...
One of the brothers said... “But I wonder... what does it look like through the eyes of ants?”

In 1971 (3 months later) the story “Roadside Picnic” was written.
The story has been translated into a bunch of languages. It was published everywhere... from Japan to Australia.

And this is exactly the work where all the wonders and horrors of the zone were born.
And the Strugatskys’ allusion to the “zone” itself, in principle, is also not very disguised.

“Yes, we have a hole. Our Zone is a hole. But the future shines through this hole.”
“Roadside Picnic”

1972 - the story “Roadside Picnic” was published.
(7 years have passed)
1979 - the film “Stalker” was released.

Soviet science fiction film-parable “Stalker” directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

This is truly a great movie!

However, fans of the Strugatskys perceived it negatively, since Tarkovsky, based on the picnic, modified the plot of the story and ended it differently.

I can’t even describe the emotions of watching this film.

Great cinema, great director.

After watching this film, I realized that it was simply impossible to do anything better.

I strongly advise you to watch the film after reading the story, since it is simply impossible to fit everything into the film’s running time... and it was intended for a prepared audience.

After reading the story, you will already know what exactly happens to children who are born to stalkers... and what is under Monkey’s scarf... and why her name is actually Monkey...

And many more very interesting little things and predictions from the greatest science fiction writers.

(7 years have passed)
On the night of April 26, 1986
A nuclear explosion with a capacity of about 75 tons of TNT occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The accident is still considered the largest of its kind in the history of nuclear energy.

Many theories and rumors about the Chernobyl zone were in the air..

On March 20, 2007, the first game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series was released.
— Shadow of Chernobyl.

A variety of authors to this day continue to write fantastic books about the zone, stalkers, swag and mutants... but the very concept of the zone, and what Arkady and Boris wrote about, what Tarkovsky’s heroes talk about - all this is radically different from what the books in the STALKER series have now become.

If you want to fully immerse yourself and understand the matrix on which “Roadside Picnic” is built, then I advise you to start with another story by the Strugatskys, which is called “The Forgotten Experiment» (1959).