Instead, Jerome leaves the Websters’ faithful robot butler Jenkins to deal with the priest, just as he leaves him to deal with everything else. The story follows Jerome through his day, as he retreats into his study to mourn his father, not even bothering to say good-bye to the priest who conducted the funeral service. Webster, great-great-grandfather of Jerome, moved there after humans abandoned cities in the twentieth century in favour of what the characters consider gracious living on huge lots of land, served by a small army of robots.
Again, only one woman is mentioned, Mary Webster, Jerome’s late wife.įor four generations now, the Websters have lived on a spacious estate with whispering pine trees, meadows, a rocky ridge and a stream full of trouts, ever since John J. In the course of the funeral, We also get a brief rundown of the Websters (and a Webster father-in-law, William “Gramp” Stevens who is an important character in the first “City” story published earlier the same year) interred in the family crypt on the Webster estate. The other two are Jerome’s son Thomas, who will soon be leaving for Mars, and Jerome’s mother, who never gets a name. Webster, and one of only three Websters still left alive.
It might be a scene in any contemporary set story, if not for the fact that the pallbearers are robots and that Nelson F. “The Huddling Place” starts off with the funeral of one Nelson F. This review will also be crossposted to Retro Science Fiction Reviews. “The Huddling Place” is part of Simak’s City cycle and has been widely reprinted. The magazine version may be found online here. Simak, which was first published in the July 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and is therefore eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugos.
“The Huddling Place” is a science fiction short story by Clifford D.
Is it me or are some of the 1944 covers of Astounding Science Fiction really bad?
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