[przefur]

I've had similar thoughts regarding the roadside picnic, the older I am, the more depressing it feels. I would highly recommend another Strugatskys book - 'Monday starts on Saturday', it is pure humor, as opposed to other works of theirs. It's about a soviet scientist that joins government's study on magic. Bureaucracy never been funnier, of course outside of 'The Twelve Tasks of Asterix', 1976.

[golergka]

> It's about a soviet scientist

It's actually about a soviet software engineer, and A LOT of the things in this book is still very relevant to our trade today.

[monista]

Rather programmer than software engineer, I think that that time, his work was mainly just calculate something, not to write software products and such.

Incidentally, the spirit of the book fits both communistic, and hacker's views: work overtime, because you like it, not for an extra reward.

[rurban]

Indeed, Monday starts on Saturday is better. Only Hungarian or Czech authors are similarily funny