Huddling Place - Clifford D. Simak (Short Story)

Collection: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame

First one in this collection I didn't really enjoy. It felt a precursor to one of his worlds he creates in the Robot series (or Foundation?) where a world is filled by vast estates inhabited by only one being. Essentially the premise is that people, in their move away from city centers to quiet country life have slowly grown more agoraphobic, to the point that the protagonist is terrified of making a trip to Mars to save his best friend, even though he is the only one who can do the operation. Finally steeling himself for the trip, he starts panicking as the ship takes forever to arrive....only to find that his presumptuous robot butler has sent the ship away because he could not possibly go to Mars. And there it stops. Crazy...but not in a good way.

 

(edit - oh, huge facepalm - this wasn't even Asimov! That's what I get for alternating between these two anthologies!) 

03/20/2021 // F // Kindle