The Space Merchants is a funny satire on the distant future, kind of similar to Futurama to me anyway.
My best source for retro sci-fi are those big anthologies of Astounding, etc. from the fifties. Most libraries have batches of them. And you can find them for really cheap at used bookstores too. A lot of the stories are crap (but still fun) but some of them are actual classics by recognized authors…
After seeing this thread the first time round, I kept an eye out for this book and finally found a copy–and I’ll heartily second this recommendation. The book’s a blast.
Is the Stainless Steel Rat series retro? Or just satire?
Satire (IMO).
Hmm. People already seem to have mentioned most of the good ones … so I’ll just sneak in a recommendation for George O. Smith’s “Venus Equilateral” stories. (Venus Equilateral being a space station, built with the most modern techniques available at the time Smith was writing … vacuum tubes and slide rules abound … It’s a lot of fun.)
Cisco, if that radio version of “Early Model” still sounds interesting, email me because there’s been a new development.
Both, I’d say.
I’m in the middle of watching This Island Earth right now. Great movie so far (main character is Cal Meacham, heh.)
I ordered The Space Merchants used from Amazon for 3 bucks. I wanted to get Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers but the cheapest copy on Amazon was $50 and my library doesn’t have it. Then I found a copy on eBay and won it for $2 
.
I’m really getting into this old Sci-Fi stuff. The only thing I really haven’t liked so far is Star Trek. I watched TMP two nights ago and TWoK last night and honestly didn’t care for either one. I rented an episode though (Episode 2: Where no man has gone before) so hopefully that will be better.
Keep the recommendations coming! I know there has to be a ton of robot and death ray movies out there that I’m just not finding on my own.
Original series Star Trek is great, and a lot different from the movies, I think.
If you can, the original novella of This Island Earth is quite good. I had no idea that a movie had been made of it, much less a cheesy 50’s one, so watching MST3K: The Movie was an odd experience until I figured out why the story was so familliar.
Anybody mentioned Alfred Bester yet? I read a couple of his books a few years back and thought they were pretty good. (Babylon 5 fans should recognize the name as well…)
I finished The Space Merchants awhile back. Felt pretty “eh” about it. It wasn’t too sci-fi’ish; more of a social/economical look at the future. Reminded me a lot of Max Barry’s books, except without the humor.
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers - I’m about 3/4ths of the way through this one. I’ve seen a couple movies in my life that I can honestly say were so bad they were good (Dolomite comes to mind) but this is the first book I’ve ever felt that way about. It’s horrible, poorly written dreck with flat characters and a lame plot and yet I can’t stop reading it.
Now Triplanetary (first “Lensman” book) - WOW. I fell in love with this book right away and loved in until the very end. I’m just waiting to have the money to order the entire series. Absolutely LOVED it.
The poor writing, flat characters, and lame plot were deliberate.
I know. Believe me, I wasn’t bashing it. Read my last sentence, “…I can’t stop reading it.”
Gotcha. I’d thought you’d run into a case where you enjoyed the writing even though you thought it was genuinely bad. For example, I like some of Robert E. Howard’s bad writing (yes, even though he’s one of the great pulp authors, evidence indicates that he did write a fair number of stories in his sleep). Honesty forces me to admit that I also like–God help me–some of L. Ron Hubbard’s stories.