Way Station

Way Station is the simply written account of a rural man, Enoch Wallace, who is tasked with running Earth's only traveling station for aliens from all over the galaxy. It is a rather slow, contemplative novel, filled with Enoch's thoughts and observations. I enjoyed seeing the various aliens and the alien artifacts through Enoch's viewpoint, and I liked that the reader was almost never presented with a complete explanation for any of them. I found it interesting that Simak's galactic empire still had room for mysticism and spirituality. One flaw of the novel was its occasional lack of cohesion, as the story sometimes wandered down side paths that were not particularly relevant to the central story. Other problems concern the frustratingly simple ending and a problematic portrayal of a young girl with a hearing disability. Way Station is a novel that shows its age, but I think it is still worth reading.

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