#162 The back of beyond: Way Station (1963) by Clifford D. Simak

The backwoods of Wisconsin may not seem like the likeliest place for humanity's future in the stars to be decided, but only outside of a Clifford D. Simak story. Wisconsin was his preferred setting, particularly the woodsy Wisconsin of his youth. With his novel Way Station, he parlayed this nostalgic affection into the 1964 Hugo Award for Best Novel. 

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Transcript

A warm, backwoods novel about striving for galactic cooperation

Clifford D. Simak (1904 - 1988) is widely credited as the pioneer of what has been called pastoral science fiction. His stories and novels are frequently set in variations on rural south-west Wisconsin, where he was born in 1904. In Simak’s work, the nostalgic peace of these backwoods locales is disrupted by alien intrusions. Way Station is a classic of this type, in which a lone man in the back of beyond has the fate of the galaxy resting on his shoulders. A landmark in Simak’s career, it won the 1964 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

First serialised in Galaxy magazine in the summer of 1963, under the editorship of Frederik Pohl, the novel focuses on Enoch Wallace, a veteran of the American Civil War. After meeting an alien visitor to Earth, he is entrusted with the running of a stopover point on the galactic highways. Wallace becomes poised between worlds - while he befriends strange aliens, he himself becomes estranged from the rest of the human race at a time when a new and devastating war seems imminent.

While at times it risks becoming overstuffed with plot and incident, Way Station is equally full of Simak’s trademark warmth. It is jointly concerned with down-to-Earth, homespun values and a sense of wonder at the scale and dynamism of a lively galaxy. One of Simak’s best-known books, Way Station expresses a sincere hope for peace and brotherhood, both on Earth and among the stars.

Not from around here

After enduring and surviving the horrors of the Civil War, Enoch Wallace returns to Wisconsin and to his small farm. He is soon visited by what he initially believes to be a man, but soon proves to be an alien visitor to Earth. This creature - whom Wallace names Ulysses after Ulysses S. Grant - offers the former soldier an extraordinary opportunity, which he accepts. The interior of Wallace’s home is converted by advanced alien technology into a way station, a part of a vast and growing network of matter transmission devices which connects the civilised worlds of the galaxy. 

While Wallace is inside the house, its effects also shield him from aging. Isolated in the Wisconsin backwoods, Wallace dedicates himself to learning about and befriending members of various extraterrestrial cultures. He maintains a hope that one day, Earth as a whole will be admitted to the galactic community, able to play a part in the grand achievements of intelligent life at large. 

After a hundred years of service, it is the mid-1960s and Wallace’s splendid isolation - at least from his fellow humans - begins to end. The U.S. government has become aware of his peculiar lifestyle, and his friendship with a local girl enrages her dangerous family. Worse, all signs on the global scene point to a growing risk of World War III breaking out. Any one of these crises could jeopardise Wallace’s hopes for the future of humanity. All of this is before Ulysses informs him that the galactic confraternity has an emergency of its own…

The galactic neighbourhood

Way Station is acutely concerned with the pursuit of peace and harmony. Enoch Wallace is scarred by his experiences during the Civil War, and is fearful about what World War III could mean for humanity. He falls in love with the peaceful, knowledge-seeking ways of the aliens he meets and with their sense of galactic brotherhood. Wallace desperately wants the galactic community to view Earth as worthy of membership, and knows that a new war could put a permanent end to those hopes.

Simak’s novel makes clear that what makes Wallace special is not any unique superhuman quality he possesses, but rather his openness to new things and his willingness to learn. Simak’s clear proposition is that it is an open mind, and a willingness to see and accept other perspectives, that is the clear prerequisite for peaceful coexistence. In its own way, Way Station anticipates some of the more utopian SF visions still to come later in the 1960s, not least Star Trek. In contrast with Gene Roddenberry’s vision, Simak’s novel is much less human-centric.

Getting along

Way Station can also be considered in the context of so-called “cosy” science fiction. While this is one of today’s prominent marketing buzzwords, Simak’s novel makes clear that warmth, positivity, and good feelings are by no means new in SF. In Enoch Wallace, Way Station has a kindly, curious figure at its heart, a man who comes to know a variety of mostly amenable and peaceable aliens. Simak takes great pleasure in having his characters explore and enjoy the Wisconsin backwoods, an oasis of rustic peace far from the hotbeds of suspicion in Washington and Moscow. 

In other ways, however, Way Station contrasts sharply with the “cosy” paradigm. There are hostile and violent forces in Simak’s galaxy, implacably opposed to Earth’s membership of a proto-Federation. Even in neighbourly Wisconsin, there is a small-minded and violent family, ready to lash out against that which they do not understand. These presences underscore Simak’s message about tolerance and understanding - Way Station is a warm and welcoming novel, but it is not naive or simplistic. The story’s stakes also clash with the general understanding of “cosy”; after all, Earth’s future is in the balance.

A friendly future

Like Ring Around the Sun (1953) before it, Way Station at times seems in danger of collapsing under the weight of its increasingly complex plot. Certain elements could likely have been done away with, such as the surprisingly benign CIA agent who gets wise to Wallace’s incredible longevity. Simak finds a way, however, to get most of these plot threads to weave together successfully in the end, in a way which serves to underscore his themes. 

A warm and well-executed novel, Way Station reflects intriguingly some of the hopes and anxieties of the Cold War era, and sets out a hopeful vision for a humanity with a role to play in a brighter, friendlier future. This is a sentiment as valuable now as it was in 1963.