Carolyn Crane has long been fascinated by hidden worlds — the wiry insides of old gadgets, the strange workings of secret societies, the mysteries of people’s minds and hearts. She’s into that as a reader and a writer, too. Plotty puzzles. Psychological intrigue. Concealed realms. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daring cats, and when she’s not writing novels or working at her day job as a freelance writer, she can be found reading in bed, running, helping animals, or eating Mexican food. Read excerpts of her novels at 
Justine Jones is a hypochondriac whose mental health is quickly spiraling downward. She’s convinced she has vein star syndrome, the condition that killed her mother. Then she meets the mysterious Packard, who recruits her into his team of Disillusionists. Disillusionists are essentially psychic vigilantes, attacking criminals by zapping their own psychological problems into the bad guy’s energy field. When the criminal has been reduced to a gibbering mass of anxiety, so Packard’s theory goes, he or she can start building a new life as a better person.
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I might say "formulaic" actually.
Your review made me curious, so I looked this book up. Sure enough: Tor. Tor seems to specialize in these…
It's a tightrope act for sure.
[…] Stuart (2 December 2015). “Roadside Picnic: Russian SF classic with parallels to Vandermeer’s Area X | Fantasy Lit…. fantasyliterature.com. Retrieved 8 […]
yes, I mean, there are certainly lots of good sci-fi/fantasy novellas out there, so they aren't impossible to do, but…