The main character, Enoch Wallace, is a rarity in SF, a totally three-dimensional character, full of imagination and compassion, but also prone to all of the frailties of his fellow humans. His masterful prose is a blueprint on how to tell a story with wit and style, never losing sight of the fact that in order to be entertained the reader must also sympathize and identify with the protagonist. Simak accomplishes in mere sentences what other writers would require full chapters. Everything seems to be part of a never ending series of books, with the publishing industry taking pointers from the TV and film companies that only want to rehash stories that have a built-in audience. Something sorely missing in all literature today, most especially SF and Fantasy, is the strong, stand-alone novel. I have edited the paragraph on that page that relates to this book, since I wanted to incorporate some of the comments into this review, particularly that one of the best things about it is its brevity. After my recent re-read I have no reason to alter that statement. When I wrote my profile article on Clifford Simak I said that Way Station was one of the finest novels the genre has ever produced. A purchase through our links may earn us a commission.
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