sdlotu
4/8/2021
This story seems to draw the same reaction from reviewers: It's about a man who wanders through a deadly wasteland looking for alien artifacts to sell.
But not really. It's as much or more about the stalker's obsession with redemption. He has a mutated daughter, who he believes is that way because of his adventuring in the Zone. His life is completely entangled with the daughter's origin, fate and future. The climax of the story turns on this. It's not a happy turn.
All the same, it speaks to what lives deepest in us, the fundamental desires underlying all our professed intentions, and how we warp ourselves to those intentions and subvert our real desires.