Notes & Thoughts
I wanted to read this because I remember, as a child, being somewhat stunned by the Tarkovsky film version of the book: Stalker. I'm not sure if I ever got past the first scene, which in my memory, is 15 minutes of silent scrolling doomscape1. But, it has stuck with me.
Initial impressions of the book were not so good. Sometimes (to me) sci-fi books can seem a bit like computer games: a bit cartoonish; a bit mysogynistic; cool, edgy protagonists; masculine cliches; lacking psychological depth; etc etc. And I got that sense immediately. What I try to remember when I start feeling this, is that it is not necessarily a bad thing, and not necessarily a fault of the book. It can be a lack of imagination on my part. So in this case, I used my memory of Tarkovsky's film, to try to trigger my imagination as I read and visualised scenes and characters in the book. It worked a treat.
I was initially flummoxed by the title of this book. It seemed to make no sense, especially for a sci-fi book, and it's not nearly as cool a title as "Stalker". But, it does finally make sense, at I think the crux of the book, where the big philosphical insight is revealed.
If you're a fan of Jeff Vandermeer, and particularly the Southern Reach Trilogy, I recommend reading this book back to back with Downward to The Earth by Robert Silverberg. I will say no more.
So, after finishing the book, I rewatched the film Stalker. Having said that the characters in the book seem a bit cartoonish, those in the film are whittled down so close to the bone that they are barely recognisable as human beings. They are often broodingly silent; and prone to long rambling pseudo-philosophical monologues (that are not in the book). The film plot covers perhaps 20% of the book. Maybe even less. In the end, I definitely prefered the book to the film.
1. It's not the first scene. I've started watching the film. It's about 35 minutes in. And it's not 15 minutes. It's actually more like 4 minutes. It just feels like 15 minutes.
P.S. I freely admit that I have not really taken sci-fi seriously to date. But I am in the processing of rectifying that.