And now comes Roadside Picnic … In the so-called Golden Age of American science fiction, when the late John W. Campbell, editor extraordinary, gathered around him in a handful of months the greatest stable of science fiction talent ever seen, he would throw out challenges to his writers, like: “Write me a story about a man who will die in twenty-four hours unless he can answer this question: 'How do you know you're sane?' “; and this one—surely one of the most provocative of all: “Write me a story about a creature that thinks as well as a man but not like a man.” (The answer “Woman” is disallowed as too obvious a rejoinder.)

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 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. 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 ravening thirst for new and more terrible weapons—and you have the framework of this amazing short novel. Add the Strugatskys' deft and supple handling of loyalty and greed, of friendship and love, of despair and frustration and loneliness, and you have a truly superb tale, ending most poignantly in what can only be called a blessing. You won't forget it.