RAH gets a mention TWICE in this Los Angeles City Beat article describing how the city’s celebrity obsesses culture affected the work of so many science fiction writers. Generally speaking though, other writers are discussed more than Heinlein.
“Nothing,†as Neil Gaiman put it, “ages harder and faster and more strangely than the future.†The SF comic-book Proust was going on about Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, but that quip might just as well reference the mandarins of SF themselves in the utopia-incinerating years since 9/11. The eventual triumph of Philip K. Dick over Robert A. Heinlein is mainly due to the fact that, while both writers invented intricate immediate futures based on Cold War ideology, the one imagined by the deranged drughead who saw God turned out to be a lot truer than the can-do rationalism posited by a libertarian Rear Admiral.
Really?
There is a lot that could be said in response to the above, whole volumes in fact. Having done a presentation in 2007 on predicting the future — comparing Heinlein and Edward de Bono in this case — I think I know a little of what I speak. But what would be the point? The “LA City Beat” is really not talking about predicting the future — they are using Dick as a stick to beat Heinlein, who will be forever typecast as a 50’s fascist uptight square. I doubt if the person who wrote the above has read more than a book or two from Heinlein, if that, and the audience of the piece even less. It is true that RAH had as one branch of his thinking what might be called a rational/linear projection into the future — the juveniles primarily — but he especially in his last two decades went off into some decidedly strange directions, maybe not as odd as PKD’s but still pretty wild.
Bester at one point was considered the original cyber-punk, something I thought Gaiman of all people would have appreciated. Maybe he did, but without fuller context to his comment it is impossible to respond. The Star My Destination remains a triumph and has barely dated at all (the world of TSMD was obviously an inspiration to the late, lament Firefly). If a reader can’t respond to this novel, he had better check his pulse — he might be dead.
So my sense is the above quote from “City Beat” reflects a very superficial understanding of any of these writers. I’ve encountered the attitude many times before (the “Heinlein was a sexist” meme is also quite popular) and since most people enounter PKD only through the movies he has inspired, I really don’t want to wade in any further.
If your looking for a dystopian future or feel that’s the way it’s going to be you read PKD. Perhaps an assigned paper in an English class might be a secondary reason.
For someone with a generally positive outlook RAH is the choice. Especially if your goal is light entertainment. I have never recommended PKD to anyone I thought might like to start reading SF. He is far too dark and hard to understand. His themes do not resonate with me at all. That of course is a plus in many circles.
If you are looking to learn about the Human Condition and our inner devils there are better choices, Dostoevsky comes to mind.
I read SF for enjoyment and relaxation, and yes escapism. Dick doesn’t offer much of that. Some how or other the movie version of his works come out much better than the Heinlein examples we have seen to date. It must be due to the natural inclination or the artistic notions of those involved. Or the realization that sometimes you just leave the script for the special effects and box office.
I hope I am still around in a hundred years to see which of them stood the test of time. On second thought if it is Dick—maybe not.