# Science fiction and vacuum tubes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 8, 2022, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654 "2022-03-08T04:27:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 141
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2022, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/141 "2022-03-15T17:25:51Z")
I just referenced the story a couple of weeks ago. It’s having a renaissance! > [@Obvious things about a creative work you realize after the millionth time (OPEN SPOILERS POSSIBLE)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/4720): > > Fritz Leiber’s gonzo story,“The Creature from Cleveland Depths,” from the December 1962 Galaxy, has what are essentially smartphones be grafted to bodies so that humans are in such constant communication with one another that they form a collective mind. It’s what used to be called black humor when black meant darkly satiric. Nobody ever listened to black humorists, even though they were almost always right in their critiques of culture. What’s fascinating about it is the rare extrapolation of psychology in tune with extrapolated technology. And showing that inventions develop meaning from the way that societies use them, not the other way around. And notice that - in 1962 - he named his startup “Micro Systems.” The story never got reprinted in an anthology until recently, though. Probably because it was too weird. Frederik Pohl had taken over Galaxy from the ailing H. L. Gold and Pohl was the most progressive editor in the field in 1962. Leiber is wildly underrated today, probably he got into a weird phase that had a cult following but not much more. As an example, also in 1962 he released [The Silver Eggheads](https://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/the-silver-eggheads) (vastly expanded from a simpler 1959 novelette). I don’t care what drugs Philip K. Dick was on at the time; that book make Dick read like Asimov. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654)._