I think that was Eric Frank Russell.
I’d also recommend some Stanley G. Weinbaum.
I love that stuff too. Guess we’ve got old-fashioned taste when it comes to the future.
“An angel doesn’t make love; an angel is love!”
Blast! The Qadgopians have perfected their invisibility ray!
Duck Dodgers In The 23rd 1/2 Century!!
On Cartoon Network. Hee-hee. 
I believe that’s twenty-fourth and a half century, for goodneth thakes…
Are you kidding? You’re right about Heinlein, but PKD is one of the weirdest and funniest in the genre. What, may I ask, have you read? Classics include Ubik (pure psychedelia; where else will you find the protagonist arguing with his apartment door?), A Scanner Darkly (where even suicide can be funny), Valis (ditto; hilarious all the way through), the much-underrated Galactic Pot-Healer (how often do you read about a fat, whale-sized god whose crushing weight has him fall through several floors by accident?), and a bunch of short stories. PKD’s trademark deadpan humour and sense of cosmic irony is found throughout.
I feel exactly the opposite about these two authors. I bought a book of short stories by Phillip K. Dick a few years ago and almost snored a hole right through it. Then a few months back I checked out The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein and couldn’t put it down.
Or to paraphrase, “You don’t know Dick.” All I’ve read is “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and Ubik, and couldn’t get through either without glazing over. It’s possible I just wasn’t in the right mood; I think I got into it right after reading a bunch of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.
Sheep is pretty much Dick’s bleakest, gloomiest work; no surprise there. I’m surprised you didn’t get Ubik, though, which I’m sure Adams must have read at some point.
Dick, like a lot of authors, wrote things that never seem to be mentioned, like The Zap Gun and another I have somewhere in my book collection but can’t remember the name of of the moment, but to describe it would probably spoil the entire book, especially the ending.
I’m a little surprised no one has mentioned Wells and Verne. Their stuff is really retro. Although I suppose they’re not quite what the OP was looking for.
Personally, Burroughs and Smith bore me. I tracked down a couple of reprints in used book stores (yes, I made sure to get the first volumes) and neither really managed to capture my attention. I never made it all the way through Smith, and though I made it all the way through the first Barsoom book, I haven’t exactly been itching to read the rest. I’m not quite sure why, as in my previous reading list are a ton of authors, and I get F&SF, Analog, and Asimov’s every month.
Hardly a valid comparison. Dick was not a great short-story writer. Also, while he wrote about a hundred short stories, I consider only a handful of these to be classics, although in many cases brilliant philosophical ideas are disguised in shoddy, pedestrian writing. Notable PKD stories and their premises:
[ul]
[li] Roog (1953) (dog perceives household’s garbagemen to be aliens)[/li][li] Imposter (1953) (during intraplanetary war, man is captured and accused of being an android created by the enemy and given fake memories and the belief that he is human)[/li][li] Second Variety (1953) (in a post-nuclear war, enemy uses robots disguised as innocent civilians to infiltrate and destroy human territory)[/li][li] Autofac (1955) (in world decimated by war, autonomous underground factories develop self-preservation skills against surviving humans)[/li][li] Explorers We (1959) (shades of Solaris as space explorers return to Earth)[/li][li] The Days of Perky Pat (1963) (workers in a bleak off-world colony obsess about Barbie-doll-like constructs and virtual worlds)[/li][li] The Little Black Box (1964) (government outlaws burgeoning underground pseudo-religion based on virtual-reality suffering; idea later used for Do Androids Dream?)[/li][li] We Can Remember it for You Wholesale (1966) (firm sells fake memory implants for vacation purposes, is surprised by customer’s existing memories)[/li][li] Faith of our Fathers (1966) (anti-hallucinatory drugs may reveal the true form of government leaders)[/li][li] The Electric Ant (1969) (man discovers he is an android; begins to hack his own mind)[/li][li] The Pre-Persons (1974) (abortion of preteens is legal)[/li][li] A Little Something for Us Tempunauts (1974) (time travelers investigate their own death)[/li][li] I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (1980) (man on many-year-long interstellar trip wakes when ship’s cryogenic chamber malfunctions)[/li][/ul]
Most of these are available in the collection The Best of Philip K. Dick.
Dick writes like some sort of depressed mentally ill person who didn’t take his meds. His stories are boring paranoid fantasies. Am I real? Am you real? Am the world real? Is everything I’ve ever believed a lie? It’s OK for freshman philosophy bs sessions, but it sure makes for a boring novel.
Dick is also a hijack. His stuff is anything but retro.
You want retro, try A.E. Van Vogt’s stuff, esp. Weapon Shops of Isher.
For short stories, look for old Groff Conklin anthologies. Brian Aldiss’ “Billion Year Spree” collection also has some good old stuff, and some modern stuff written in the tradition of the good old stuff.
I’m lukewarm on HG Wells but Jules Verne just happens to be one of my favorite authors. You’re right though, they’re both a little too retro for this thread.
Give me death rays! Give me robots! Give me movies with death rays and robots!
Wow, I just watched Forbidden Planet. It took place on another planet, had a flying saucer, death rays, a robot, and Leslie Nielson. It was quite possibly the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life.
Anything else out there like it?
I had forgotten about Mr. Handy. Now I’ve got to go back and play that game.
Not that I know of. But where do you go from there?
An intelligent robot that can synthesize just about anything!
Incredible power!
Technological telekinesis!
“Monsters from the id!”
People ripped to shreds!
Impenetrable metal. That invisible monsters can penetrate!
<aside>
Did you notice the far overhead shot where they’re walking on a ramp on a tour of the Krell machine? There’s a similar shot in the Babylon 5 episode “A Voice in the Wilderness part 1”.
</aside>
I’ve never seen Babylon 5. I want to check it out though because I’m a big fan of J. Michael Straczynski’s comic book work. He’s a great writer.
I’ve also heard that Forbidden Planet was a big inspiration for the original Star Trek series. I really want to check that out too but it looks like I can either pay $85 for the DVD set next month or pay about $12 an episode on VHS. I’m not sure if it’s worth the gamble. I’ve never seen a single episode of any of the incarnations of Star Trek nor have I seen any of the movies. I’d hate to spend all that money to find out I hate it.
Great isn’t it? Reading back through this thread I’m glad to see that I mentioned it. I really think it’s one of the great unsung classics of the genre.
For a post-modern take on the genre, I’m surprised nobody mentioned Mars Attacks!. It’s a wonderful tribute/send-up of those hoary old Sci-Fi B movies of the era. Don’t let the candy-coloured veneer of badness fool you, Tim Burton knew exactly what he was doing. This movie would make a great triple bill when matched up with Plan 9 From Outer Space directed by Ed Wood, one of the most infamously awful SF movies ever made and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood a paen to its namesake, Bela Lugosi, and movie-making in general.