The Scourge: A Kindle Serial (Part II)

I've clearly tripped and fallen down a rabbit hole. Kindle Serials are a sneaky sneaky kind addictive. I got into The Scourge thinking it would be some enjoyable literary fast-food. Which it is. But it's also quite enjoyable, to the point of addictive. By dishing out the story in bite sized chunks I found myself constantly waiting for the next installment and then eagerly devouring it when it arrived. And now that this iteration of the series is over it's a given that I'll subscribe to the next season when it comes out.

By contrast, I recently purchased season one of Yesterday's Gone, another wildly popular Kindle Serial, when it was on sale. I'm finding myself less motivated to pick my way through this story. Granted it has a different pacing, but I think part of it is knowing that I already have the entire season loaded up. The progress bar moves so slowly between the dots that represent episodes. I think part of the allure Kindle Serials benefit from is their episodic delivery. Maybe it's a novelty factory. I find myself vastly preferring the on-demand model for TV shows, watching entire seasons in a couple days. That's more like the traditional model for books, and with some kinds of content I definitely prefer to have everything at one. But this whole concept of being rationed out a story is really enjoyable.

Sidenote: I really hate when stories end abruptly. It's more about the story ending without resolution than it is the abrupt ending. If I wanted to speculate on how a story might end I would just not read the ending. I know some literary circles probably say that it's brave to write an open-ended story, but most of the time I think it's more brave to pick a direction/destination for the plot, take readers there and deal with the consequences. Ann Patchett consistently does this beautifully. After reading one of her books you pick up all others knowing with near-certainty that your heart will be broken in the final pages. But you love her all the same for sharing a story with such beauty and promise that each time you end up believing the best could be possible.

Roadside Picnic: A Review

A while back I picked up Roadside Picnic from the super sale section on the Kindle store. I understand it's considered to be a sci-fi classic by the Russian brothers Arkaday and Boris Strugatsky. Wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a fascinating read.

The story is set in Russia, the site for one of several extraterrestrial visits. Little (if anything) is known about the visitors. Most of the knowledge is gleaned from the sites of their visits. The geography has changed in visible and invisible ways. It affects those who enter the sites, both government scientists and renegade "stalkers" who scour the zones for discarded alien artifacts and technology to sell on the black market.

You are invited to follow one of the stalkers through years of exploration of the zone, the politics and sociology of the alien visits and how humanity copes with and understands knowledge power.

I really wanted to like Roadside Picnic more than I did. I'm a sucker for evaluating society through the lens of science fiction. But in what is probably a stroke of genius overall Roadside Picnic provides more questions than answers. Some stories lend themselves to interpretation/subjectivity, but I really wanted a few more firm answers. It may have also been partially that this is a translation from a Russian novel written a decade or so before I was born. In that sense it was enormously fascinating. It's interesting to see how similar we all are as people. Regardless of nation or creed, we all ask many of the same questions and seek to define ourselves and the world in similar terms.