Way Station
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 1964 Macfadden Edition cover |
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| Author | Clifford D. Simak |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Released | 1963 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
Way Station is a 1963 science fiction novel by Clifford D. Simak, originally published as Here Gather the Stars in two parts in Galaxy Magazine in June and August of 1963.
Way Station won the 1964 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
[edit] Plot summary
Enoch Wallace, an American Civil War veteran, is chosen by an alien called Ulysses to administer a way station for interplanetary travel. Wallace is the only human being who knows of the existence of these aliens, until almost a hundred years later, when the US government becomes aware of and suspicious about his failure to age or die. At the same time, a powerful artifact sacred to the aliens for whom Wallace works is stolen, and Wallace becomes convinced that the Earth is about to be consumed by a nuclear war.
The novel has a number of subplots that erupt from nowhere and are finally drawn together at the end:
- The government is very interested in him and spies on him for an indeterminate time.
- His closest neighbors are a psychotic family whose daughter is a deaf mute. She heals warts, birds and butterflies and is the total antithesis of her clan.
- Adopting an alien math, he computes that the world will go to war and predicts nuclear suicide.
- He has a gun he never uses but one day he goes into the cellar and there's an elaborate gun range operated by alien technology that inserts you into the hunt for monstrous beasts.
- The Talisman—the galaxy’s connection to the spiritual force—is lost, and the 'great cofraternity of the galaxy' is beginning to break down.
- His ghostly support system which he created years ago collapses on him.
- He is left with the choice of allowing the earth to destroy itself in war or call down a galaxy sponsored "dumbing down" that would last for generations but avert the looming war.
This novel uses a somewhat archaic voice, and some of the grammar is thusly difficult to follow:
- "Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today that insanity-turned-principle stood ready o wipe out, if not the race itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries."
- "I've been figuring for years how to get it told, but there's no way of doing it."
The book is overall rewarding and presents an interesting view of the cold war and basic human drives for violence and peace through science fiction's eyes.
