The Way Station, Clifford Simak (1963)
Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ...
I was assigned to a class that met in the library at Lafayette High School earlier this year. They had a shelf of books removed from circulation that were free to be taken. I didn't want to be greedy because these were for students. But on the other hand, some of these books, realistically, would never be taken. On of these was The Way Station, which according to the printing history was produced in 1988, and according to the final circulation card in the back was last taken out four times in 1994. After 25 years, I think I was safe in taking it, particularly considering that it was originally written and won a Hugo Award before I was born.
The only Simak novel I've read (I may have read short stories in old anthologies) was City, which I purchased from the Science Fiction Book Club way back when, on purpose, not as a mistake that was sent in the mail because I forget to send back the preference card. I still remember most of it after a few decades, so that says something.
This book was a little slow getting started, but a lot of older books seem to be that way, most likely because today's books seem to start en media res.
Enoch Wallace was a Civil War soldier. A hundred years later, he's still alive, which draws the attention of the government, including agent Claude Lewis. A number of the locals note something peculiar as well but for the most part keep their distance, except for Winslowe Grant, his delievers his mail. Enoch is the caretaker of a station used for intergalactic travel, similar to a network of Stargates except thirty-plus years earlier. Aliens and artifacts and packages pass through en route to other worlds. They also bring "deceased vegetation" because it known that the gatekeeper collects it. In actuality, Enoch takes the alien wood and gives it to Winslowe, who carved statues. He's curious but not too curious about the wood origin.
Interstellar travel by ship still takes months and years to accomplish, so this is a revolutionary system, and his is as important job, which he was chosen for by an alien Enoch calls "Ulysses". Ulysses, who doesn't object to that moniker, is a member of the galactic council and sort of a supervisor, who checks on from time to time on Enoch. He always visits for the coffee.
Enoch worries for the fate of the world and the coming war, but it's basically the fear from the Cold War of nuclear annihilation, not a war from space. However, he does fear that man's behavior toward man could keep it from entering into the Galactic confraternity.
Other characters of note: Lucy, a deaf mute who has a sensitivity that allows her to operate an alien mechanism (a pyramid of spheres that suddenly lights up) in a way that baffles Enoch. Also, her father, Hank Fisher, who doesn't trust Enoch and assumes he has the devil in him. Finally, there's Mary, an interactive hologram (the shadows) of someone from long ago, who, to be honest, I'd forgotten about by the end of the book, when she came back. I'd originally thought the scene a hallucination rather than a hologram. The man was lonely after all.
I took a picture of my cover because it was better than the images online. It shows a glowing creature by a grave, but it isn't a ghost. It's a "Hazer", which is what Enoch affectionately calls Vegans, those from Vega, not the ones who don't eat animal products. And it's visiting the grave. It hasn't risen out of it.
Overall, an enjoyable book and one that obviously seeds so much of sci-fi that is to come. This is a little bothersome in that if so much sci-fi owes a litle something to this book, why haven't I heard of it before? Maybe I have and forgot that I did? It's not like I didn't know the name. Still, it's curious.
