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The Puppet Masters Mass Market Paperback – July 27, 2010
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 U.S. 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 .
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBaen
- Publication dateJuly 27, 2010
- Dimensions4.19 x 1.1 x 6.75 inches
- ISBN-109781439133767
- ISBN-13978-1439133767
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Product details
- ASIN : 143913376X
- Publisher : Baen; 1st THUS edition (July 27, 2010)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781439133767
- ISBN-13 : 978-1439133767
- Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.19 x 1.1 x 6.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,746,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #17,383 in Space Operas
- #28,044 in Science Fiction Adventures
- #82,963 in American Literature (Books)
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About the author
Robert Heinlein was an American novelist and the grand master of science fiction in the twentieth century. Often called 'the dean of science fiction writers', he is one of the most popular, influential and controversial authors of 'hard science fiction'.
Over the course of his long career he won numerous awards and wrote 32 novels, 59 short stories and 16 collections, many of which have cemented their place in history as science fiction classics, including STARSHIP TROOPERS, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and the beloved STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
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Into this armed and ready world came the slugs, or Titans as they were called because they came from Titan, one of Saturn's moons 12 light years away. A landing in Iowa was billed as a hoax a day or so after the event and agent Elihu Nivens, the narrator of the story, remembers that most of the UFO sightings during the 1940s and 1950s were hoaxes. The only difference is that this UFO sighting was the real thing pretending to be a hoax so the Masters, sluglike creatures that fasten to a person's back at the base of the neck and sink tendrils into the spine spine and brain to control people.
Elihu, named Sam for the mission to Iowa, his boss and a beautiful young woman named Mary, pretending to be his sister (blast his luck), pose as tourists to check out the situation. They even got as far as the mayor's office and saw that many people, including the mayor, had humps on their back at the shoulders. It didn't take long to figure out the UFO wasn't a hoax and invaders from space were taking over.
The Masters moved silently using the knowledge in people's minds to make their takeover swift and silent. One Master rode Elihu and nearly took over Washington D.C. It was Mary and the boss of the agency, who just happened to be Elihu's father, that caught Elihu and rid him of his Master. Convincing the President and Congress that measures needed to be taken immediately took longer and didn't happen until they saw it personally.
Heinlein didn't predict the sate of the world as we know it now. He didn't accurately predict the future. There are no cell phones, world wide Internet communication, or any of the social situations we live in today. He did, however, think we would have flying cars by now, which we obviously do not, and Russia is no longer a threat, except in more capitalistic terms, since the Wall came down. Heinlein wasn't clairvoyant, but he did know people and psychology and how people react. That is where The Puppet Masters excels.
In Heinlein's eyes, Venus isn't a hell planet with a surface covered by exploding volcanoes and poisonous fumes for air but a lush jungle hothouse capable of sustaining life and we have gone to the stars and colonized Mars and many other moons, including our own. Heinlein knew how we would react and how our democratic system of government would take its time to vote on whether or not to believe in the danger from the stars and deal with it. There is where I find Heinlein's vision of the future accurate.
I read The Puppet Masters about 20 years ago and reading it again was a revelation. I didn't remember all the details, but I do remember the sense of wonder that came as I turned the pages and dove into the America on the page. Heinlein's belief in mankind and his strengths -- and weaknesses -- was nothing less than miraculous. I cheered as the lights in the Red Zone began to go out even though getting rid of the Masters was borrowed from H. G. Wells's defeat of the Martins in War of the Worlds, and too easy. Although the virus that kills the Titan Masters was effective and Elihu and his wife Mary, who held the key to the Masters' defeat, were on their way to Titan to free the moon's native population and kill every last slug, the sense of hope and the promise to take down any species that presumes to eradicate humans before we can do it ourselves is quite stunning.
The Puppet Masters has its failings, but science fiction isn't an exact science. It is the possibility based on one writer's visions and dreams. Heinlein's work is always about the people, the characters of any given situation, and not about predicting the future. People are endlessly fascinating and frustrating but, even after all these years, Heinlein's writing, in spite of its lack of accurate fortune telling, is worth reading, not for the facts, but for what he leaves behind. The very real and flawed characters of the Old Man, Elihu/Sam, and Mary (to a lesser degree). The relationships between the Old Man and Sam is priceless and shows, even before it is revealed, that this is father and son.
One thing more Heinlein reminds us is that special confidence in people that when the excrement hits the revolving blades there is still hope and we, the human race, will still be standing -- and fighting. I rather enjoy Heinlein's vision of the future as I ride around in my flying car en route to the launching station that will take me to new worlds, moons, and planets.
Three themes seem intertwined in this touching work. . .
One, how can/should 'authority' (husband, boss, president, scientist) use its power to help and not hurt?
Two, how can/should each individual decide when to submit to authority and when to resist?
Three, how is understanding found? When and how combine facts/data into wisdom? Who decides?
These questions addressed throughout with taste, discernment; so smoothly, so enjoyably, that reader wants more!
For example - What is needed to reach past facts to wisdom?
''His unique gift was the ability to reason logically with unfamiliar, hard-to-believe facts as easily as with the commonplace. Not much, eh? I have never met anyone else who could do it wholeheartedly. Most minds stall dead when faced with facts which conflict with basic beliefs;
"I-just-can't-believe-it" is all one word to highbrows and dimwits alike.''
For example, on the choise of freedom vs security. . .
"We come," I went on, "to bring you—"
"To bring us what?"
"To bring you peace," I blurted out. The Old Man snorted.
" 'Peace'," I went on, "and contentment—and the joy of—of surrender."
"Let me get this," the Old Man said thoughtfully.
"You are promising the human race that, if we will just surrender to your kind, you will take care of us and make us happy. Right?"
"Exactly!" The Old Man studied me for a long moment, looking, not at my face,
He spat upon the floor.
"You know," he said slowly, "me and my kind, we have often been offered that bargain, though maybe not on such a grand scale. It never worked out worth a damn."
The challenge of scientific authority arises this way.
Sam's wife has been willing interviewed under drugs to probe her memory. Nevertheless, the results have been concealed from her. Sam confronts the doctors . . .
"There was not time for that. We had to use rough methods for quick results. I'm not sure that I can authorize the subject to see the records."
Hazelhurst put in, "I agree with you. Doctor."
I exploded.
"Damn it, nobody asked you to authorize anything and you haven't got any authority in the matter. Those records were snitched right out of my wife's head and they belong to her. I'm sick of you people trying to play God. I don't like it in a slug and I don't like it any better in a human being. She'll make up her own mind whether or not she wants to see them and whether or not I or anybody else will see them. Now ask her!"
Steelton said, "Mrs. Nivens, do you wish to see your records?"
Mary answered, "Yes, Doctor, I'd like very much to see them."
This demand for personal dignity is the key action that leads to winning the war. Lesson? Personal rights are more than just a feeling, they are a principle that have long range benefits.
This kindle edition includes both a forward and an afterword. Both interesting. The afterword notes . . .
''Being free was never easy. Our oldest account of freed slaves tells us of their sitting by their fires in the desert and lamenting the lost fleshpots of Egypt, when they had eaten well in captivity and oppression.''
Insightful.
(I first read this 40 years ago. Reread from time-to-time. I always liked the story and the characters. I did not understand why. Now (maybe) I can see the abstract principles Heinlein is presenting. Means more to me now than before.)
(For a scholars analysis on choosing freedom vs security, see ''The Death of Humanity: and the Case for Life'', by Richard Weikart)
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Great product for a great price.
Here, in The Puppet Masters, (PM) we have Heinlein trying to write an adult novel in which he hides his philosophical musings as well as he did in his Juveniles. Does this attempt succeed? No, not entirely, however, PM is a damned entertaining four hundred pages of action and characterisation, which, largely allows its polemics to serve the story, rather than the other way round.
Sometime in the not to distant future an operative for deeply secret government agency uncovers a plot by aliens to infiltrate our society and take us over from within. They are a diabolically described creature, a flat organism which adheres to its victims skin and then controls it's mind and action. The agent, Sam, his colleague, Mary and their boss, struggle, at first, to convince the powers that be to believe in they threat. However, eventually, the true scale of the Puppet Master's plan is perceived by all and the rest of the book is devoted to the efforts of the unaffected humans to battle this insidious menace.
PM is excellent entertainment, it has many fantastic set pieces, one where Sam has to voluntarily allow a PM to take over his mind, utterly chilling and the complexity of the relationships between the three leads is fascinating. The part of Mary, given that this was a novel written in the early 1950's is that of a surprisingly independent and capable agent. (Yes by today's far more realistic standards she's still on occasion treated like a wilting flower, but Heinlein was far in advance of most of his peers in this regard).
There are matters about which to complain, the ending being lifted from H.G. Wells. Certain diatribes about communism, which seems to suggest that anyone living under that vicious political creed is less than human, rather than portraying them as people whom the system itself treats as less than human. But, but, PM is a thoroughly engaging and exciting sf adventure. It's a must read for any who like that period of the genre. It's extremely well written and so fluid in its effect that you barely notice Heinlein's technical prowess. It is four hundred pages of rollicking excitement, thrills, horrors and fun. What more could you possibly want from a novel written as pure entertainment. Worth every penny the money spent and every second of the time taken to read it. The Puppet Masters is superb fifties sf, order a copy and enjoy.
And seriously - Heinlein is a grand master of science fiction; I'd still re-read any of his works!