Teaser

Enoch Wallace was a young man during the American Civil War. A hundred years later, he is still a young man. Yet while his neighbours fear a pact with the devil, the truth is far more alien . . .

Review

My history with Clifford D. Simak is scarce. having read a few of his short stories in various anthologies over the years, I had broadly concluded he was not an author for me. However, events conspired to place Way Station in my hands. The first was it’s win of the Hugo Award, which will always get my attention. The second event was finding it in a charity shop. Quite wonderfully, it was joined by multiple other mass market science fiction books on a spinning rack. Exactly the presentation such books deserve, if you ask me. How could I say no to this opportunity to pick up multiple Hugo winners. The short answer is that I couldn’t. This momentary weakness has turned out to be to my advantage, however, and Way Station ended up being a much more enthralling book than I could have possibly imagined.

On the face of it, this doesn’t sound like the sort of book I’d enjoy. Meditations on immortality rarely interest me, the American Civil War is not a period of history I know much about, and Simak has previously struck me as being on the weirder end of the spectrum when it comes to the ideas behind his stories. To tackle the first issue, Enoch Wallace spends a thankfully short period of time moping over his immortality. He’s only immortal when he stays in his house, you see, which doubles as a transit station for interstellar visitors. On the second issue, his background is exactly that. It’s background, and isn’t particularly relevant after the first chapter, save that Wallace has very good reason to be wary of conflict and government officers. Perhaps the most noteworthy use of his background is his naming of an alien ‘Ulysses’ after ‘a great hero.’ Not being an American myself, I assumed he meant Odysseus, but he actually mean Grant. Ah, cultural differences. You have to love them.

To the third potential issue, yes. Yes, this is a deeply weird book. the central idea is so bizarre I’d even go so far as to call it wacky. Wallace runs an interstellar station for alien visitors to Earth, and for a lot of the book, that’s all he does. He keeps to himself and simply keeps his journals of all he sees. There’s a B-plot revolving around a local deaf-mute girl that is inevitably folded in to the main narrative, and that’s where we get most of our action. The rest is a deep and mature reflection on humanity’s place in a larger galactic society. Wallace finds himself in an unusual position of power when Earth is targeted by certain alien elements, meanwhile humanity’s own governments are teetering on the brink of mutual annihilation. In that, this is very much a novel of the sixties, with the shadow of nuclear fallout looming large over everything.

Where Way Station differs from the rest is that there are no great meetings of minds. No conferences. No scientists. there are some shady government agents, but they soon fall on the side of the angels. All of the human political drama happens off the page, or in the background, allowing the more existential questions to come to the fore. Like so many others, this book asks the question ‘how far would you go to save humanity,’ yet it does not couch the answers in violent terms. There is violence here, but it falls by the wayside to reveal a deeply human story of struggle in times of crisis, and offers a way out that doesn’t involve conquest or destruction.

All things considered, Way Station was a real surprise. One of the best books I’ve come across this year, and one that has me looking at Simak’s other novels with fresh eyes.

Book Stats

• A Standalone Novel
• First Published in 1963
• 236 Pages