Letters to the Editor
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I Hearya
I feel the same way, base: I marvel at how archaic the late fifties and early sixties seem, in retrospect, when, at the time, and in juxtaposition to what would be a then young adult's recollection of the thirties and forties, the latter period seemed like TomorrowLand.
To be fair, I think this grousing--which periodically rears its head--is over the absence of dramatic change like the advent of aircars, towering cityscapes with ribbons of soaring highways between the spires and jetpacks. In truth, the best authors--and the best illustrators [see Gil Kane of D.C. comics and the more gritty artists of Marvel's pre-cursor] saw what is, in fact, the more realistic vision: the new amongst the old and gradually subtle but significant advances leading to a tipping point where everything changes. Dick was the only "authentic" SF author who, in my mind, could get away with chronological anomalies like aircars in the latter part of the 20th century and early 21st century soaring cityscapes like the one envisioned above--and even he has, possibly, the escape hatch of alternate realities to explain those apparent gaffes.
I'm afraid most of the complainers aren't true aficionados from the so-called "Golden Age" of adult SF; more likely, they were avid readers of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.
ps: to the commenter gazing on a planet of "incarceration" allegedly missed by SF authors: starting with the late sixties onward and the Ellisons, Spinrads [who has his own "aircar miscalculation" in "Bug Jack Barron"], Dischs and the British "New Wavers," with or without a cue from Orwell, SF authors saw this coming down the pike. I often think of Disch's "Room 323 [or 223, I can't remember the numerical part of the title] when I read of the latest news from Iraq or, when I'm particularly dispairing, the latter's "Camp Concentration" and/or John Brunner's Dos Passosian future trilogy.