The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein [1951]
Museum Press.
191 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.08] from
Reading Odyssey
Rating: Recommended, old-fashioned but solid
Story and Setting
After nuclear World War III, the US and Russia remain prominent powers. The urban landscape still bears nuclear scars, but civilization has repaired itself. Technology has advanced. Transportation is largely by means of cars that can both drive and fly on autopilot, and medicine and cosmetic alteration have also reached new heights. Phones can be implanted in an individual’s skull. Space travel is common, and the near solar system Mars and Venus have been explored and colonized.
A group of secret agents – Sam Nivens, “The Old Man”, and a tough, attractive female agent known as Mary, are called to investigate a crashed “flying saucer.” There is deception, and they very quickly discover that Earthlings have a new, horrible enemy. Their origin is apparently the outer solar system; their method is direct control of the human mind and body. They are parasites which prove extremely effective in their methods and extremely difficult to fight. As they gain more ground and take large swathes of the US, the struggle becomes ever more desperate. All three of these agents, Sam, Mary and the Old Man will prove pivotal in various ways to the conflict, and each endures psychological agonies. As the situation gets even more critical, Sam Nivens must transcend his training and acceptance of authority both scientific and governmental. With the help of vital information from Mary, he accesses an unknown inner genius and formulates a daring plan. The future of humanity will depend on its success!
Critical Appraisal
The Puppet Masters Is a well-formed, action-packed Sci Fi story and more. The “and more” exists very gracefully. It’s a book with a basically conventional flavor, a clear, quick easy read, but supported and extended by sub-flavors not necessarily all that conventional. To an extent, the characters, except perhaps for the protagonist, will seem like cut-outs, but the clever plot they are trapped within, and clever themes they partake of, do a lot to plump their dimensionality. There’s plenty of spy or detective fiction content - tough guys, heaters, gun play, disguises, partly-caricatured violence, brutal necessary sacrifices. But this conventional (and let’s be honest, often
successful) structure is woven just so with a rebellious cross current and seemingly more essentially Sci Fi substance.
A transformation is at the crux of the story, from a clever grunt into a world-saving genius and hero. This is Sam’s path – he achieves his breakthroughs by smashing through rules and hierarchies. He uses his love for his wife, his irreverent common sense, and a new found technical genius to save the day. Encased within this is a conventionally touching father-son reconciliation story, of finally getting dad’s fullest possible approval. But to get there Sam must not only transgress the ivory towered science establishment, the US Congress and military discipline, but most significant of all, own father’s authority. It marks a transition and succession of power that catches the protagonist charmingly off guard.
There’s a believably deep bond between Mary and Sam born largely of the terror and trauma they share. Nevertheless they have a pretty conventional spy-story romance. Though she’s tough, and Sam does have very real respect for her, and she does share a large part of the heroics, it’s still the “yes, dear” that it seems he considers her sweetest trait. You see perhaps a stab at a more sophisticated outlook in a scene when someone insists “women are even stronger than men!” But it rang false to me and seemed almost embarrassing. In partial fairness, though Sam seems shockingly naive about relationships himself.
Making the main character something undeniably resembling an amphetamine addict was an admirably daring choice. It exposes this super-tough guy to criticism. He even recounts some typical and obvious addict rationales; he is highly concerned about his supply of drugs, and injects intravenously; he details come-down effects. Though he recounts it all very matter-of-fact and it is apparently considered to be no big deal by the wider world around him, (Like they did in WW II, powerful stimulants are used in the US military openly.) Still, there are some scenes where others say something like “Hey, take it easy on that stuff.” The most painful scene relating to this is where he gets Mary to take the speed pills too, though she clearly doesn’t want to. This is a fairly clear blot on the main character as I’m sure I Heinlein intended it to be(?). Again, more depth to Sam.
Nudity is a big part of this book. I still struggle to understand if it legitimately has a greater meaning than just a surface necessity within the plot. It is certainly an example of getting over one’s hang-ups for the sake of duty. Aside from a few minor remarks, the narrator takes it as an adult. Eventually people adapt and expect it to last in fact indefinitely.
So, allegorizing… are the slugs just the commies? Their mind control is just like the Russians, huh? No, I just don’t think you can squeeze the feeling and sense of the book into that statement. Still you must wonder in the infuriating scenes before the US congress - Is he perhaps parodying the US reluctance to enter WWII? Or is it rather the US underestimating the communist threat? Both? Neither? I guess it’s a timeless joke on Congress - as good in 2020 as anytime else.
Though it never gets too goopy, the element of horror is strong in the novel – in both the slimy nature of the enemy and in scenes where characters are forced to do terrifying things, they really, really don’t want to do. As a normal modern reader of course I have already been exposed to the idea of alien parasites on human bodies. But what if I hadn’t? What if I were reading it for the first time? I bet the terror would be substantially magnified. Even as it is, the slugs are pretty icky.
In fact it’s fun to hate the slugs. I mean to really, really hate them! You want to slice ‘em and sizzle them. There is a foreshadowing of revenge and “to be continued” at the end. And the book concludes with a rousing tribute to amped-up human aggression -- an intense, species-unifying, recreational hatred of the slugs. Why not?
Think I prefer the expurgated version.
