'Roadside Picnic' by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

This is my second Strugatsky book, and it's made me think that their work just might not be my kind of thing. I found myself not really enjoying the novel while reading it, but appreciating it somewhat more on reflection. I valued the reading experience, but it isn't one I find myself wanting to recommend. I like the memory of having read it more than I liked actually reading it - does this make sense?

Aliens have briefly visited the Earth, for a "roadside picnic" - they landed for a bit, then left, leaving their landing area polluted and full of alien garbage. Humanity cordons off the landing areas, the Zones, to keep people safe and so scientists can investigate. Stalkers are people who sneak in to the Zones to find alien artifacts to sell on the black market. 

The story takes place over a few years, and during that time the existence of alien tech and polluted landing zones becomes a mere fact of life, an everyday occurrence to the people living near the Zones. After the initial shock and surprise at the realization that We Are Not Alone, life goes on similar to before. For the majority of the novel, the alien tech and the strange effects of the Zone on the town are in the background: the story focuses on the dreary and grim lives of those involved in the black market for alien tech, "swag". 

The novel has an oppressive, bleak, and claustrophobic atmosphere. The characters' lives are very insular, intent on their next payday so they can provide for their families - the significance of alien contact does not matter to the majority of humanity, who are just working to survive. The Zones are dangerous, and their dangers little understood. There are rough methods for navigating them, made by trial and error - the ruined and desiccated corpses of dead stalkers litter the floor. The stalkers could die at any moment, if their instincts slip up. The world is brutal and uncaring. The aliens' indifference to humanity further adds to the novel's grimness: they never bothered to establish contact, just landed, made a mess, and flew off again. The human scientists experiment with the alien tech but have no understanding of how it works; the aliens are so technologically superior to us that we are like monkeys trying to reverse engineer the latest iPhone.

The characters are, for the most part, ordinary folk living out their ordinary lives - lives which just happen to involve alien technology. Familiarity breeds indifference; humanity accepts the amazing technology and advances of the modern world as a fact of everyday life. SF stories tend to treat Alien First Contact as a momentous world-changing event; Roadside Picnic goes further: world-changing events become the new normal.

I find it hard to rate this novel. I didn't enjoy it very much while reading it, but it has a grim realism to it which is impressive and evocative. I can see that the novel has its merits, and am glad I read it. Roadside Picnic is certainly an SF classic, but I don't think it's my kind of SF classic.

The Communist Manifesto

 'A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism.'

Thus begins Marx&Engels Communist Manifesto, this evening's quick read. (Pro tip: the Penguin Little Black Classics edition is very cheap)

'All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police spies.'

The manifesto's intention is to present Communist views to tackle 'this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism'. 

At its best, the Manifesto reads like the grandiose introduction to a world-changing adventure story, or the scene-setting prologue at the start of an actioney video game. (In particular, I am reminded of the Race Intro narrations from World of Warcraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQN5PgnBgU0) We are given a simplified overview of history, and empowering call to get out there and save the world:

'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. 

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. [...]

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.'

The Manifesto's criticisms of the capitalism are often still applicable: wage repression and the declining living standards of the working classes, etc, etc. And some of the suggested improvements are still appealing, eg. a progressive tax system. And there are some good lines throughout, eg. 'Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.'

But the manifesto obviously has problems. A sizable section deals with responses to Communism's critics: this section does not seem at all large enough given the failures of Communism in the previous century. The tone of the authors often feels too confident, like prophets assured that their visions of the coming Utopia have come from some Proletarian Deity. 

Perhaps the worst thing is how simplified it is; I haven't read anything else by Marx or Engels, but I'm assuming the manifesto was their way of getting their ideas a wider audience, by dumbing it down and making it accessible to anyone: the manifesto is to their other work what Brian Cox's 'Wonders of the Solar System' is to, say, Sir Roger Penrose's 'The Road to Reality'. 

I get the feeling that if you replaced 'bourgeoisie' with 'Corporate Overlords', then a lot of it could once again be be very popular with those leaning to the left. If you replaced 'bourgeoisie' with 'Liberal Metropolitan Elite', then a lot of it could be popular with those leaning further towards the right.

I would write more, but I'm getting sleepy. In summary: it's a historically important read which has some good bits and you can get through it in one sitting; I have not been converted to Communism.

Magic Is Bad

"You shall not permit a sorceress to live" - Exodus 22:18

“A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death." - Leviticus 20:27

Those lines from the Bible make it quite clear that Magic is Bad, and were the basis for Europe's witch hunting craze during the 15th to 18th centuries. The Islamic ruling on magic is equally clear, and comes from the Hadith (the Qur'an's expanded universe):

"The prescribed punishment for the magician is that he be executed by the sword."

Islam, like Christianity, affirms the existence of magic and assigns it to evil forces. Christianity assigns it to demons and Satan (the Devil). Islam assigns it to evil jinn and Iblis (the Devil). In Islam, 'satan' is not the name or title of a single Devil; it can be applied to any human or jinn who is opposed to Islam and Allah. This is slightly similar to an early Hebrew tradition in which the word 'satan' (adversary) was applied to any angel or servant whom God sent to oppose or tempt someone (to be their adversary) - there are examples of this usage in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These 'satans' are loyal servants of God, doing his bidding, and were eventually merged together into the single Jewish Satan (The Adversary) from the Book of Job, who is still a loyal servant of God. The 'satan' jinn of Islam are against God, but since God controls everything, they're also doing exactly what he wants? Islam is particularly irritating because it doesn't seem to have anything resembling a coherent mythology, because Muhammad was an illiterate merchant who only knew bits of Jewish and Christian lore, which he slammed inconsistently together, sprinkling some Arabian folklore on top.

Umar, the second Caliph of Islam (634CE - 644CE), asked his soldiers to kill every fortuneteller and magician they found during their campaigns against the Persian and Byzantine empires. However, later Caliphs were more relaxed, so it was down to the hardcore Muslims to remind everyone how to deal with magicians. During the reign of Al-Walid I, a magician was present at the caliph's court. He wowed the audience by severing a man's head then re-attaching it to his body: the audience cheered and yelled, "OMFG! He can raise the dead!"

But one audience member wasn't impressed. He went to the next show with a sword strapped to his back. (No security searches back then.) As the the show began, the Good Muslim charged through the crowd, sword drawn, and chopped the magicians head off.

Turning to the shocked crowd, the Good Muslim yelled, "If he can really raise the dead, let him raise himself!"

The Good Muslim was arrested and imprisoned.