NP (but everything connects): N Weiner, Vonnegut & PKDick

[Mark Kohut]

Seems Kurt V. had, personally sent by his publisher, a copy of his first novel Player
Piano go to N. Weiner. Who read it and wrote angrily about the young author to his
editor at Scribner's that he recognized his colleague John Von Neumann in the character named
von Neumann (!) he [author] 'cannot with impunity play fast & loose with the names of living people."
He went on to say that the 'new cult' of science fiction was refusing to confront, as he
was, the misuse of computers.....instead "pointless fairy tales about ..tomorrow"...
 
Taken aback, KV later told his wife that Weiner knew as much about satire as he [KV]
did about cybernetics. 
 
PKDick liked the novel--"Nobody knew who Vonnegut was"--because it was not the usual vision of a 
future in which humankind would be the master of machines. 
 
                                        -- from Shields' biography