Enoch Wallace led a solitary life. He left his house only to collect his mail or take an occasional walk; his two Earthly acquaintances were the postman and a beautiful deaf-mute girl who could mend the broken wing of a butterfly. If his neighbors in the hills of Wisconsin thought it strange that he never seemed to grow older, they never spoke of it. He was, in fact, the keeper of Way Station 18327.
When Wallace agreed to manage the Way Station, he had been unaware of the greater role for which he was being considered—Earth's sole representative to the Inter-Galactic Council. For more than a century he carried out his duties flawlessly, having become so accustomed to the bizarre and wonderful creatures that passed through his materializer he saw nothing unusual in a plasm that communicated by changing its shape or a beetle that counted by clicking its mandibles. …
Enoch Wallace led a solitary life. He left his house only to collect his mail or take an occasional walk; his two Earthly acquaintances were the postman and a beautiful deaf-mute girl who could mend the broken wing of a butterfly. If his neighbors in the hills of Wisconsin thought it strange that he never seemed to grow older, they never spoke of it. He was, in fact, the keeper of Way Station 18327.
When Wallace agreed to manage the Way Station, he had been unaware of the greater role for which he was being considered—Earth's sole representative to the Inter-Galactic Council. For more than a century he carried out his duties flawlessly, having become so accustomed to the bizarre and wonderful creatures that passed through his materializer he saw nothing unusual in a plasm that communicated by changing its shape or a beetle that counted by clicking its mandibles. He passed many evenings listening to the fascinating tales of these travelers from the furthest reaches of space.
Then the outside world threatened to destroy the Way Station, and with it, man's Last hope of avoiding cataclysmic self-annihilation. The CIA suddenly became interested in a Civil War veteran who looked younger than thirty, an alien corpse in his family cemetery, and a house whose windows could not be broken with an axe.
Way Station is top-grade science fiction by one of the foremost authors in the field.
What a curious gem of a book densely packed with oblique quotes from occult tablets and tomes all refluffed into bug-eyed 1963 tropey SF! Page after page straight out of emerald tablet and its ilk. All stuffed into an actually good story with great warm caring characters (CW well-meaning ableism that was pretty hard to get through). Dinged for initially using weird framework as a tension driver but to my delight it was read by boardgaming's darling, Eric Summerer! I didn't know he did audio books! Although it was hard to hear it was him because he got deep into character, really elevating the main guy.
