Way Station

By: Clifford D. Simak

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Length: 7 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

In this Hugo Award-winning classic, Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he has done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

More than a hundred years before, an alien named Ulysses had recruited Enoch as the keeper of Earth's only galactic transfer station. Now, as Enoch studies the progress of Earth and tends the tanks where the aliens appear, the charts he made indicate his world is doomed to destruction. His alien friends can only offer help that seems worse than the dreaded disaster. Then he discovers the horror that lies across the galaxy.

BONUS AUDIO: Way Station includes an exclusive introduction by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Mike Resnick.

©1963 Clifford D. Simak (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

• Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1964
• All-Time Best Science Fiction Novels (Locus Magazine)

A very special novel that will inspire you.

One of the best SF novels I've ever read - full of the wonder and awe of a small child looking up at the star-filled sky at night and dreaming of beings on other worlds. This novel certainly takes its place as one of the most imaginative and powerful works in the genre. Simak's concept of an extraterrestrial "way station" being set up in an isolated Wisconsin farmhouse is both simple and profound. What goes on there will amaze and inspire you. Not full of action and suspense, but quietly inspiring and thought-provoking.

An absolute Joy!

During my adolescence I was absorbed in speculative science fiction. Not only was it an escape from the strictures of the Christian community in which I lived, but a philosophic tendency that was more akin to my true nature. Writers like Simak, Silversberg and Heinlein broadened my world view and fired my imagination. Many decades later Simak remains a favorite and I was thrilled to find WAY STATION available on audio. It has aged incredibly well and remains and wonderful and absorbing narrative. Gentle, spiritual and pastoral, this novel is an affirmation of the human experience. Simak is a fine writer and considering the age of this book, he was also a man of broad vision. A lovely audio experience, well narrated and produced. For fans of this genre, an absolute must have!

Holds up well

For a science fiction book written in 1963 this novel holds up remarkably well. Like much of the genera from the 60's it reflects hope with regard to the future of humanity; it is whimsical and sweat in spots. The main character is a solid decent human being who represents us well to the
rest of the galaxy; and Simak represents him well to us the reader.
This book is a gem coming from the era where the
trilogy meant Lord of the Rings or maybe the Foundation books. Back when a well crafted science fiction story most often was only one book. It is solid and I would recommend it to all.

SUPERB !!

I was somewhat hesitant to download my first audible book. I also wasn't sure I wanted to hear one of my all time favorite books growing up being read to me in the voice of someone else. I was extremely impressed. Quality of download and clarity were wonderful. I was very pleased and this made my long travels for work much more enjoyable. Almost hoped for rush hour jams!

Viewed from a different perspective..

Summary: The CIA investigate a reclusive "young looking man" who lives in a remote farmhouse in Wisconsin - he claims to be a Civil War veteran and he's called Enoch...
It turns out that there is more to this mysterious man that meets the eye - in fact, in Enoch's backroom - there's a way station for the Galactic transport network - and he one of the station masters!

Insights: A warm and well written book that won a Hugo Award. Although written in the 60's, it's philosophy is that you cannot judge a person (well aliens as well) by it's cover.

A quiet classic.. recommended!

Slow story, clunky dialog

This story felt much longer than the stated runtime.
The prose could have used a good editor. The dialog is very stilted, and the narrator brings out all the flaws. This book was not written to be read aloud. By the second hour, I was tired of hearing the word "for." As in, "Enoch was sad, for he could no longer see humanity." A variation of that sentence using the word "for" appears hundreds of times in the book.
The author would often cluster the same word three or four times in several adjacent sentences. I kept wanting to scream "use a thesaurus!"
So much of the dialog was stilted and clunky it reminded me if reading the dialog in the old testament Bible.
The plodding plot and dry characters weren't enough to rescue it for me. The only reason I finished was the story wasn't too long.

Okay

The story is okay. Sort of long and drawn out, gave me a feel of being a little preachy. But then again, when looking at the time frame it was written in most science fiction tended to get that way. The story doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. It has a basis and a concept that could run it into a direction, but it just sort of gets lost in itself.

Optimistic SciFi... FINALLY!!

I do like some emotionally raw books that makes me notice the amount of dust that I have in my apartment, that keeps landing in my eyes. Lately I have been bombarded with emotionally poignant stories, from other sources; **SPOILERS** Harry killing Susan, Senator Wen killing Holly, Claudia being shattered with Jinx death, and then the whole Prometheus movie trailers. **END SPOILERS**

Way Station highlights the best of humanity.

There are emotional conflicts and some bad stuff does happen. If the bad stuff didn't happen, the story just wouldn't be worthwhile. All stories need conflict, consequences and emotional resonance.

This story does have the conflict, consequences and the emotional resonance in spades. But at the end of the story, it also leaves room for some hope and some affirmation that life isn't just about loss.

Clifford D. Simak left me feeling inspired.

Interesting concept but too repetitive

Aware of comparing novel styles in the past with current works, e.g. a Edgar Allen Poe versus a Dean Koontz novel of today, I still feel that there was more wrong than right with it. I was intrigued with the concept of person becoming a host for wayward space alien travelers for a couple of centuries. And, for the first quarter of the story, I found it interesting and novel.

Then the repetition began where the author would continue have the protagonist over-think almost every situational encounter ... over and over and over. Then the repeated instances where the protagonist endlessly waxed philosophical on every situation where a decision branch was encountered.

I was most disappointed with how it ended, leaving many of the important issues unresolved. Did Lucy actually decide to go? How did CIA gin sing guy assuage Lucy's parents? What happened with the meeting with earth's leaders and did it have any positive effect on ending the pending war drums?

It was frustrating to spend that much time on a novel and come away with no further movement on the whole premise of the novel, humankind's encounter with aliens.

A ray of hope during the Cold War

This book about a secret connection with the superadvanced Galactic group of species was written during a period of international tension at the highest point of the Cold War. Many people were pessimistic about the survival of our own species, and it shows through. The main character comes from a time long before this, having been recruited by his friend the alien he calls "Ulysses" back in the 19th century. The reflections he has on serving as a soldier in the US Civil War. gives the author an opportunity to muse about war and weapons, and to set up a contrast with the superadvanced technologies he encounters with the creatures who pas through his "way station." It is a side effect of the station techology that causes aging to stop, which ends up providing a plausible reason for his neighbors in the country to grow suspicious. But in the end it is a strongly optimistic work, unlike Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz which comes from around the same era with many of the same concerns.

I had a few problems with the way the main character was set up. Despite his extraordinary origin and his more than a century in the service of Galactic Central operating the transit station on Earth, Enoch is not a fascinatingly complex character. He is content to do what he needs to do to carry out his job, learning everything he can learn about in the process, and living essentially as a hermit otherwise. I thought he sort of came off as a stand in for the author, mostly free of faults or internal turmoil. The one bad thing he does in the story is a simple bit of carelessness in planning a funeral plot, nothing worse than that, and the author has to work hard to portray this as a serious faux pas when it comes to presenting ourselves to the judgement of the Galaxy. He is always decent, courageous under stress, and inclined to ruminate over things rather than acting impetuously. Besides visits from his alien friend Ulysses on occasion, he has what amoutns to a set of imaginary friends he talks to in the evenings, and a close relation with the mail carrier he is dependent upon to provide most of his daily needs. More tenuous is a romantic attraction he has to the mysterious deaf neighbor girl Lucy who seems to symbolize the best qualities of humanity, meekness, gentleness, and a sort of mystical intuition with other living creatures. For the majority of the book, Lucy displays no agency, until a moment at the climax where she seems to seize the alien plot Macguffin, an act that essentially catapults her to cosmic significance.

The last ten or twenty percent of the novel is rather different from what went on beforehand. For me, it makes it hard for me to rate it as a four-star book. It becomes more of an action adventure story. At one point, Enoch struggles hand-to-hand with an evil nameless alien criminal, a literal rat-fink, who just happens to choose Enoch's station with essentially no forethought or planning until Enoch acts to save the day. The novel had been shaping up to be a sort of a political intrigue organized by alien factions out to consign the Earth to her own misery (because of Enoch's carelessness), but now a new opportunity to obtain some fantastic alien wisdom presents itself just at a time when we are on the brink of nuclear annihilation. I lived through the 1960s myself, and can understand this desire for a way out of our predicament, but still this felt a little too pat for me.

Enjoyable and engaging story

I have enjoyed all the Clifford D Simak stories I have read so far, and found this one to be particularly enjoyable. I liked the picture it painted of the life whole scenario and of the various alien and human characters involved.