I'm partway through CDS's _Ring Around the Sun_. When the protagonist,
Jay Vickers, knocked on the door of "the big house"[1], a robotic
retainer answered the door. Nothing surprising in a Simak. But, what
did surprise me was him introducing himself as "Hezekiah".

This caused a neuron to fire, telling me that "Simak has had other
robots named 'Hezekiah'." Sure enough, I pulled _A Choice of Gods_
off of the shelf and found another one almost immediately.

I am thinking that he might have had more than these two, but don't
want to take off the next two months re-reading all of my Simak (as
pleasurable as that might be) just to find out.

Does anybody here recall him using that name for a robot in any of
his other works?

[1] No, not a prison, just a big house. Probably the only house on
that planet, so it's also "the small house".
--
Michael F. Stemper
Deuteronomy 24:17

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 1:11:08 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> I'm partway through CDS's _Ring Around the Sun_. When the protagonist,
> Jay Vickers, knocked on the door of "the big house"[1], a robotic
> retainer answered the door. Nothing surprising in a Simak. But, what
> did surprise me was him introducing himself as "Hezekiah".
>
> This caused a neuron to fire, telling me that "Simak has had other
> robots named 'Hezekiah'." Sure enough, I pulled _A Choice of Gods_
> off of the shelf and found another one almost immediately.
>
> I am thinking that he might have had more than these two, but don't
> want to take off the next two months re-reading all of my Simak (as
> pleasurable as that might be) just to find out.
>
> Does anybody here recall him using that name for a robot in any of
> his other works? [snip]

"Founding Father" (1956) and "Installment Plan" (1959). Also "The
Simple Way" (1951) in _City_ (1952).

On 27/09/2023 13.04, Ahasuerus wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 1:11:08 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> I'm partway through CDS's _Ring Around the Sun_. When the protagonist,
>> Jay Vickers, knocked on the door of "the big house"[1], a robotic
>> retainer answered the door. Nothing surprising in a Simak. But, what
>> did surprise me was him introducing himself as "Hezekiah".
>>
>> This caused a neuron to fire, telling me that "Simak has had other
>> robots named 'Hezekiah'." Sure enough, I pulled _A Choice of Gods_
>> off of the shelf and found another one almost immediately.

>> Does anybody here recall him using that name for a robot in any of
>> his other works? [snip]
>
> "Founding Father" (1956) and "Installment Plan" (1959). Also "The
> Simple Way" (1951) in _City_ (1952).

Wow! That was fast! I half-thought that there might be one somewhere
in _City_, but its episodic nature didn't make search by riffling the
pages seem likely to succeed.

Did you extract that info from the ISFDB, or are you a closeted
Simak fan?

--
Michael F. Stemper
I refuse to believe that a corporation is a person until Texas executes one.

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 4:02:46 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 27/09/2023 13.04, Ahasuerus wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 1:11:08 PM UTC-4, Michael F.. Stemper wrote:
> >> I'm partway through CDS's _Ring Around the Sun_. When the protagonist,
> >> Jay Vickers, knocked on the door of "the big house"[1], a robotic
> >> retainer answered the door. Nothing surprising in a Simak. But, what
> >> did surprise me was him introducing himself as "Hezekiah".
> >>
> >> This caused a neuron to fire, telling me that "Simak has had other
> >> robots named 'Hezekiah'." Sure enough, I pulled _A Choice of Gods_
> >> off of the shelf and found another one almost immediately.
> >> Does anybody here recall him using that name for a robot in any of
> >> his other works? [snip]
> >
> > "Founding Father" (1956) and "Installment Plan" (1959). Also "The
> > Simple Way" (1951) in _City_ (1952).
> Wow! That was fast! I half-thought that there might be one somewhere
> in _City_, but its episodic nature didn't make search by riffling the
> pages seem likely to succeed.
>
> Did you extract that info from the ISFDB, or are you a closeted
> Simak fan?

Closeted? Heavens, no! I have been open about my appreciation of
all things Simak forever. (Or at least "all things Simak" which were
first published between 1944 and 1968; his post-1968 novels were
uneven.)

Re: the ISFDB, all we have is bibliographic information. I had to
search my copy of _The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D.
Simak_ -- https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?40088 -- and
consult Google to find the stories.

In article <uf1nn7$36fkc$1@dont-email.me>,
Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:
>[1] No, not a prison, just a big house. Probably the only house on
>that planet, so it's also "the small house".

[Hal Heydt]
Quite anumber of years ago, I was employed by Pacific Bell (the
California Regional Bell Operating Co., e.g. RBOC) as a
programmer-analyst. By definition, I was an exempt employee, so
when there was a strike, I would up--temporarily--being a 411
operation. In the San Quentin (the city) phone book "the house
at" San Quentin was the state prison.

(The really disquieting fact was that on Friday evenings, callers
wanted the phone numbers of bars. On Saturday mornings, they
wanted the booking departments of jails.)

On Wednesday, 27 September 2023 at 18:11:08 UTC+1, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> I'm partway through CDS's _Ring Around the Sun_. When the protagonist,
> Jay Vickers, knocked on the door of "the big house"[1], a robotic
> retainer answered the door. Nothing surprising in a Simak. But, what
> did surprise me was him introducing himself as "Hezekiah".
>
> This caused a neuron to fire, telling me that "Simak has had other
> robots named 'Hezekiah'." Sure enough, I pulled _A Choice of Gods_
> off of the shelf and found another one almost immediately.
>
> I am thinking that he might have had more than these two, but don't
> want to take off the next two months re-reading all of my Simak (as
> pleasurable as that might be) just to find out.
>
> Does anybody here recall him using that name for a robot in any of
> his other works?
>
>
> [1] No, not a prison, just a big house. Probably the only house on
> that planet, so it's also "the small house".
> --
> Michael F. Stemper
> Deuteronomy 24:17

Looking through
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah>
about a king of the country of Judah
in the bible, I do not see a particular reason.
Apparently the name means "God is my strength"
or something like that. It might suit a powerful
robot without an obvious energy supply.
Nothing stands out to me here either
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem>

On 27/09/2023 15.43, Ahasuerus wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 4:02:46 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

>> Did you extract that info from the ISFDB, or are you a closeted
>> Simak fan?
>
> Closeted? Heavens, no! I have been open about my appreciation of
> all things Simak forever.

Well, that just shows how unobservant I am; I never noticed. In my defense,
his work doesn't come up in discussions h<
ere all that often. :-

> Re: the ISFDB, all we have is bibliographic information.

That was what I'd thought.

> I had to
> search my copy of _The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D.
> Simak_ -- https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?40088

Oh, cool! The fact that you could do that is an argument in favor of
electronic copies. (At $13/e-book plus a reader, I'm not gonna do it,
however.)

--
Michael F. Stemper
Economists have correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.

On 27/09/2023 17.10, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Wednesday, 27 September 2023 at 18:11:08 UTC+1, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

>> retainer answered the door. Nothing surprising in a Simak. But, what
>> did surprise me was him introducing himself as "Hezekiah".
>>
>> This caused a neuron to fire, telling me that "Simak has had other
>> robots named 'Hezekiah'." Sure enough, I pulled _A Choice of Gods_
>> off of the shelf and found another one almost immediately.

>> Does anybody here recall him using that name for a robot in any of
>> his other works?

> Looking through
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah>
> about a king of the country of Judah
> in the bible, I do not see a particular reason.

That was the next thing that I was wondering about. Why did Simak
name so many robots (see Ahasuerus's post) "Hezekiiah"?

> Apparently the name means "God is my strength"
> or something like that. It might suit a powerful
> robot without an obvious energy supply.

Simak's robots are not particularly powerful. Nor are any of his
other characters. All very ordinary.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Economists have correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 4:43:30 PM UTC-4, Ahasuerus wrote:
[snip-snip]
> I have been open about my appreciation of all things Simak forever.
> (Or at least "all things Simak" which were first published between
> 1944 and 1968; his post-1968 novels were uneven.)

P. S. I should have probably said "written" instead of "published". It
would have excluded _Empire_, which was written in 1939 and
published in 1951. To quote
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2873162 :

"According to a Simak interview published in Muriel R. Becker's
Clifford D. Simak: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980),
the first version of this novel was written by John W. Campbell,
Jr. when Campbell was "something like eighteen years old", i.e.
in the late 1920s. That version remains unpublished.

After Campbell, then the editor of ''Astounding'', serialized Simak's
"Cosmic Engineers" in early 1939, he gave the manuscript of
''Empire'' to Simak to see if Simak could rewrite it. Simak did
rewrite the novel, but Campbell decided that the new version
wasn't suitable for publication either.

In 1951 H. L. Gold, the editor of the SF magazine ''Galaxy'', was
looking for material for his Galaxy Science Fiction Novel series of
standalone novels. He had heard about ''Empire'' from Campbell
and approached Simak to see if he could buy it. Simak asked
Campbell if Campbell wanted to share the credit and the money,
but Campbell refused. In the end, ''Empire'' appeared in ''Galaxy
Science Fiction Novel #7'' as by Simak alone."

As Simak readily admitted, it wasn't a good book.