Status
Call number
Publication
Description
First came the news that a flying saucer had landed in Iowa. Then came the announcement that the whole thing was a hoax. End of story. Case closed. Except that two agents of the most secret intelligence agency in the US government were on the scene and disappeared without reporting in. And four more agents who were sent in also disappeared. So the head of the agency and his two top agents went in and managed to get out with their discovery: an invasion is underway by slug-like aliens who can touch a human and completely control his or her mind. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And most of Iowa is already under their control. Sam Cavanaugh was one of the agents who discovered the truth. Unfortunately, that was just before he was taken over by one of the aliens and began working for the invaders, with no will of his own. And he has just learned that a high official in the Treasury Department is now under control of the aliens. Since the Treasury Department includes the Secret Service, which safeguards the President of the United States, control of the entire nation is near at hand.… (more)
Media reviews
User reviews
The Puppet Masters is, arguably, the classic mind-controlling-aliens-invade story (if anyone has another candidate to suggest, please do). The Titans control their hosts (human and otherwise) through physical contact, most often at the spine just below the neck. They reproduce extremely rapidly, and soon posses an extremely large percentage of the population - large enough that the protagonist, Sam, calls it a "saturation" point, and the Titans actually drop the masquerade.
The goal of the Titans is to possess the entire human race - effectively, to spread themselves and their control to the uncontrolled portion of humanity. In North America, that uncontrolled population resides on the East and West coasts. They primarily advance this goal through infiltration, and also by using dogs and some other animals as carriers at night out of the Red (i.e. Titan-saturated) zone into the Green (free human) zone.
The goal of the uncontrolled humans, on the other hand, is to resist takeover, to free the enslaved population, and to kill the Titans.
Now here's the problem: early in the book, in chapter three, Heinlein introduces a drug called "tempus fugit". It's freely available in pill or injectable liquid. It increases subjective perception and reaction time by - well, Heinlein contradicts himself within the same paragraph:
...I took them occasionally to make a twenty-four-hour leave seem like a week. ... Primarily, though, they just stretch your subjective time by a factor of ten or more - chop time into finer bits so that you live longer for the same amount of clock-and-calendar. Sure, I know the horrible example of the man who died of old age in a month through taking the pills steadily...
Note that ten-to-one is given as the minimum alteration (despite Heinlein's earlier referral to an effective seven-to-one ratio). In chapter 21, Sam says "Suppose we have just twenty-four more hours; we could fine it down to a month, subjective time." Since he's proposing this to his new wife, this thirty-to-one dose is presumably not dangerous. Even higher subjective speeds are specified later, in chapter 24:
The doctor gave me a short shot of tempus and I spent the time - subjective, about three days; objective, less than an hour - studying stereo tapes through an overspeed scanner.
That is, at a minimum, a 72-to-1 increase in perceived time, and when he takes it, he's recuperating from serious burns. I'm afraid I've over-explained, but here's the basic point: why weren't the free humans dosed with tempus every time they invaded the infected zone? From the first time, when they were trying to get video proof of the titans' existence, to the last, when they went in to give antitoxin to the human population, tempus would have made their task about a thousand times easier. And yet they didn't use it, or even discuss using it.
And what about the Titans? They have access to tempus too, but are never mentioned as using it at all. Which raises an interesting point: does tempus affect the Titan who is controlling a human, if the human takes it? If so, the Titans could have created high-speed assault & infection agents very easily. On the other hand, if the tempus does not affect Titans, then that raises a whole new interesting question. What happens when a human being controlled by a Titan is dosed with tempus? Suddenly they're thinking and reacting ten to 72 (or more) times faster than their master. Can the Titans exert meaningful control over their host under those conditions? If so, virtually unstoppable high-speed infectors seem to be an obvious option for them.
And if not, why didn't the free humans send tempus-dosed troops to inject tempus into infected humans in zone Red?
Yet another odd lapse in the story appears in chapter 24:
What we needed was [...] something that would disable humans or render them unconscious without killing, and thereby permit us to rescue our compatriots. No such weapon was available, though the scientists were all busy on the problem. A "sleep" gas would have been perfect, but it is lucky that no such gas was known before the invasion, or the slugs could have used it against us.
But when we go back to chapter 8, when the Titan-ridden Sam is recaptured much earlier in the story:
With his other hand he thrust something against my side; I felt a prick, and then through me spread the warm tingle of a jolt of "Morpheus" taking hold. I made one more attempt to pull my gun free and sank forward.
Okay, it's an injection rather than a gas. But it knocks out a highly trained agent before he can do anything about it. It's even called "Morpheus", for god's sake! Leaving out the absolutely obvious possibility (which absolutely nothing in the book rules out) of sending tempus-dosed troops with Morpheus injectors to knock out the population, Morpheus alone seems to be an invaluable weapon for either side. They're obviously both aware of the drug. And yet it is only used once, in the above passage.
Perhaps I'm being unfair to Heinlein. But he himself described the care that he put into his work - I recall an anecdote he wrote about spending a week with his wife writing calculation after calculation on huge rolls of butcher paper, in order to derive a point about an orbit or trajectory that went into only one line in a novel. Two logic holes such as this in one of his golden age novels...well, that's just astonishing.
Or perhaps this is one of those occasions where his editors overrode his wishes and forced him to self-censor? I've only read the original edition, so I can't be sure.
Another minor point that occurred to me: To defend themselves from the Titans, the free humans adopt mandatory nudity. Several times, they mention a concern that the weather will soon be getting colder. Why wasn't transparent clothing ever considered?
It's still a great read. Heinlein was, without question, a master storyteller. Which may explain why I never noticed these gaping logic holes before!
When a flying saucer lands in isolated Grinnell, Iowa, it appears to be business-as-usual, just another hoax put together by a couple of Iowa farm boys with nothing better to do. Or is it? All the "Old Man" knows for sure is that he sent several agents to Iowa to investigate the landing and that none of them have been seen or heard from since. That is why he decides to go to Iowa along with two of his best agents, "Sam" and "Mary," posing as a family of tourists in Grinnell to get a firsthand look at the flying saucer. What they see is an obvious hoax, a ship that would fool no one for long. What they learn before barely escaping Grinnell, however, is shocking.
The citizens of Grinnell, Iowa, are being controlled by alien parasites that have attached themselves to the spinal columns of their victims. Since the parasites are hidden by the clothing of those they control, all appears normal to unsuspecting humans until they, too, are saddled with a Puppet Master of their very own.
The "Old Man" and his two agents return to Washington D.C. where they face the difficult task of convincing the President and his staff that the threat from Iowa is real. Seeking evidence that will finally convince government authorities that the U.S. has been invaded by an alien culture, Sam returns to Iowa with two agents and a live camera capable of broadcasting "stereo" images back to Washington. Needless to say, things do not go well for Sam and his crew but he accidentally returns with the proof he needs to make his case: an agent who has been taken over by one of the alien "slugs." Thus, begins America's fight for survival but, despite the best efforts of America's military, the entire center of the U.S., from north to south, is soon lost to the Puppet Masters.
"The Puppet Masters" is very much a novel of its time. Heinlein, for instance, makes comparisons between what it is like for an American living under the control of a Puppet Master and what it is like to live behind the Iron Curtain or in communist Russia. Sam comes to the conclusion that the two experiences must be very similar, maybe even worse for the unfortunate Europeans and Russians. Too, modern readers are likely to find Heinlein's attitude toward women to be sexist, and at least a bit offensive, because his female characters, unless they are elderly, are always described in terms of their attractiveness, first, and their abilities, second. And, while this long version of the novel does include Sam's sexual escapades, his romance with Mary, and references to orgies and the like, it is all presented in a very 1950s squeaky clean manner. It is the kind of thing that appealed mightily, of course, to teenage male readers of the era.
"The Puppet Masters" holds up surprisingly well today despite the fact that it was one of the first alien invasion novels of its type, one in which those being invaded by aliens took the initiative to fight back. One could not likely have read the novel during the 1950s without thinking of America's cold war with Russia and all the horrors that might suddenly spring from that standoff. Mr. Heinlein knew his audience well and "The Puppet Masters" became a science fiction classic.
Rated at: 5.0
This is a fast paced story that packs in plenty of action scenes that will be familiar to thriller readers; car chases, gun battles, abduction and problem solving, with the three main characters seemingly unstoppable as they fight back against impossible odds. There is also a romantic interest as a love affair develops between Sam and Mary. What makes this novel different from the usual thriller story is of course the aliens and these are suitably nasty with an insidious power that is hard to fight against and most people will cringe at the idea of a giant slug-like creature taking control through attaching themselves to the spinal column. Heinlein has fun with his alien invention, not only do they evoke an intense squeamishness, but also they can only be seen when the human captive takes off his or her clothes. People must strip to prove that they are not infected by the slugs: even the President of the United Staes must stand naked.
The plot is well thought out and there is a mystery to solve, but the all action sequences make it feel more like an adventure story. The thriller story tropes may be over familiar now, with the three heroes ploughing a path through all conventions, laws and red tape to battle the aliens, but it did have enough originality to keep me entertained. Sexism and racism is no more than one would expect from a science fiction novel of this era and it does have a formidable female lead character, with Heinlein making equal play of both sexes when they have to strip. Apparently Heinlein's original manuscript was a third longer than the 1951 novel, but was cut to avoid controversy. Good Schlock 3.5 stars.
I had two main reactiosn to this tale. First, I found the dialogue surprisingly snappy and brisk. It reminded me of dialgue from good film noir like Double Indemnity. Second, Heinlein showed his skill by constantly escalating his tale. Many an author would
I love sci-fi written in the 50s and 60s; it illuminates the climate of paranoia that became SOP at the beginnings of the Cold War. The story is told from the perspective of Sam, who is an operative for a top-top secret intelligence agency. As the story opens, Sam, another operative name Mary, and the intelligence agency chief known only as The Old Man receive news that a flying saucer has landed in Iowa (of all places!) and eventually it becomes known that aboard the ship was some sort of alien life form which looks like a slug and attaches itself to the backs of human beings. The government of the United States refuses to believe that this is any kind of real threat until it is too late. Sam, Mary and the Old Man have to find a way to rid the world (yes, the aliens go global) of this alien presence before it's too late.
The story is well written, funny and a bit like the detective stories of the period where the detective is the narrator. I would definitely recommend it to sci-fi fans, fans of Heinlein and anyone interested in the "aliens have landed" type story.
Otherwise this is pretty classic 50's scifi. Alien parasites land on Earth and start taking over, while a super secret government agency tries to fight them off. There is an original Star Trek episode that borrows heavily from this concept, so its hard not to visualize images from the show while reading the book. Pretty standard, unsurprising science fiction without any great political or philosophical insights.
I picked this book to re-read (I read it first decades ago) after another novel mentioned it in passing. I am glad I did as the more experienced me saw the multi-layered novel with fresh eyes. Heinlein fans have no doubt already read the novel, but I think it is worth reading again.
Awards
Language
Original publication date
ISBN
Local notes
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1951 by Robert A. Heinlein
Copyright © 1951 by World Editions, Inc.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
First Ballantine Books Edition: November 1986
First Revised Edition: January 1990
Other editions
Similar in this library
DDC/MDS
813 |