Enoch Wallace is the keeper of the Way Station. The Way Station is a teleportation chamber where travellers stopover during their journeys across the galaxy.

This particular Way Station has been constructed within Enoch Wallace's childhood home, so that, although it appears as an old log cabin out in the sticks from the outside inside it is a high technology machine.

Enoch Wallace is a US civil war veteran. His payoff for running the station is immortality, whilst inside the machine he does not age, and any aging he undergoes when outside in the world is reversed when he returns to the station.

He lives in one of the most isolated areas you could imagine, and those few folks that live in the area are not likely to betray his longevity, treating his oddity in this way as just one of those things. Wallace has however begun to draw attention, for one thing he has had held subscriptions to several magazines for over eighty years.

Claude Lewis is an investgator determined to discover Wallace's secret, and he heads to the rural area to infiltrate and gain the trust of the locals – claiming to be searching for rare herbs.

Whilst this is happening a drama is being played out on a far wider scale. The galactic society responsible for the Way Stations is collapsing. There exists a mystical device called The Talisman. This device is continually taken on a tour of the planets of galaxy and acts very much as a unifying force. The problem is that the device has been missing for decades and this loose affiliation of worlds is beginning to fragment.

This is a classic sf novel. Okay I might be little biased as I was weaned on sf from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Simak, Sturgeon and co. This is the kind of book I read to get my head back into it.

Simak is the author of one of my favourite books – City – and although this book doesn't rank as highly as City it is a good book. But what would expect from a writer like Simak – this man knew how to write.