Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fifties paranoia at its most sublime, 18 Mar 2004
This book exemplifies all that is good about mainstream SF of the Nineteen Fifties and suffers only from minor political incorrectness in terms of male and female stereotyping, and the rather irritating remark made about gay men by the US President; ‘There have always been such unfortunates.’
But then, it was the Fifties and Heinlein was rather on the right wing of the SF stalwarts of the time.
Our hero, Sam Nivens, is a square-jawed All American type who would willingly die to preserve the liberty of America and whose laconic monologue tells the tale of the invasion of the Puppet Masters.
Heinlein’s aliens, a perfect metaphor for what America believed typified the evils of Communism, are a kind of gestalt entity; grey slugs which attach themselves to the backs of humans and take over the mind and body of their hosts. They are sexless, appear to have no individual personalities and exchange information by some form of physical transference when in direct contact with each other.Just as in Jack Finney's ‘The Body Snatchers’ the aliens ‘infect’ humans by stealth, reinforcing the idea of communism as a plague, contagious, insidious and more than anything else, invisible.
The hosts are literally enslaved by their masters (‘Master’ actually being a term which Sam uses to describe them). Heinlein takes these threats of loss of individuality, the natural fear of disease and the rather disturbing concept of slavery (which is as alive and well today in the guilty American consciousness as it was in Nineteen Fifty One) and parcels them up into a chilling tale of what is essentially a war of ideologies.
The book might well have been stronger if there had at least been some benefit, or purpose to the aliens’ invasion. As it is the aliens do not compel their hosts to wash or eat properly, and so are destroying the hand that feeds them, as when it is discovered that the bubonic plague has returned to Communist Russia.
If Heinlein consciously meant these aliens to be metaphors for Communism then he should have made them less unknowable. The suggestion is that one shouldn’t even try to understand Communism. To attempt to know Communism is to be infected by it. The menace cannot be lived with. It has to be eradicated from our minds.
Of course, it’s difficult to understand, in a post USSR world, what level of paranoia existed in America at the time.
Certainly, a large number of Fifties SF films and novels featured ordinary people being ‘possessed’ by aliens, often taking over an entire community, abandoning American culture and values and replacing it with something else.
When a live slug is eventually captured, Sam is ‘possessed’ and for a while we see the world of the ‘hag ridden’ through his submissive eyes. It is this makes Sam from something more than a mere two-dimensional hero. A stereotype he may be, but from Nineteen Fifty One it is interesting to see an SF hero with fears, emotions and failings, and who even cries on occasions. The aliens themselves are beautifully thought out. An immortal gestalt entity which reproduces additional units of itself by binary fission and may which hold memories dating back to the dawn of its sapience.
At the end of the novel they remain enigmatic, and the question, raised in the opening paragraph of the book as to whether they are intelligent in any way we understand, is never answered.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
How does it feel... to be a puppet master?, 7 Jun 2009
"Were they truly intelligent? By themselves, that is? I don't know and I don't know how we can ever find out..."
While the idea of alien parasites infiltrating humanity is pretty much standard sci-fi now (from Jack Finney to "Stargate SG-1"), Robert Heinlein was pretty early on the concept. And "The Puppet Masters" remains a chilling story to this day -- he wove together some brilliantly vivid writing, some climatic twists, and an intelligent look at how the threat of alien slugs would change our society almost overnight.
Sam (an agent for a top-top-top-secret government organization) accompanies the Old Man and his new partner Mary to a site where a UFO supposedly crashed in rural Iowa. Unfortunately, they soon encounter bizarre gloppy alien creatures that attach themselves to a host's back -- and it turns out that one of them sneaked along with the Old Man's team, back to Washington.
With Iowa completely possessed and the government threatened by alien manipulation, all of humanity suddenly is in danger -- countries start bickering, people become hysterical, and almost everybody is practically naked. As the United States tries to keep the aliens contained, Sam and Mary must find a weakness in the puppet-masters that won't kill the host as well. And the answer may lie long ago in Mary's half-forgotten past...
"The Puppet Masters" is a true classic -- it spawned "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "The Faculty" and even a "Star Trek" episode. Not only is a chilling look at a quiet alien invasion via "body-snatching" slugs, it's also a pretty intelligent look at the societal changes that might come from alien parasites -- clothes aren't worn, pets become lethal, and an atmosphere of distrust where anyone may become a possessed killer.
The biggest problem with Heinlein's writing is the sexist attitudes towards "females," which is smugly condescending at best. Otherwise he comes up with a pretty solid "future" Earth that is just a little more advanced than we are and a few wars down the road (World War III is mentioned), but not too different in the ways that count (if you can overlook now-anachronistic stuff like a communist Russia).
And Heinlein unrolls a slow-moving sci-fi tale that's heavy on the social/political stuff, some horrific moments (S "All planets are ours") and a rapid romance between Sam and Mary. His style has a delightfully, deceptively casual flair and some snappy dialogue ("Cosmetics?" "Your own ugly face will do"), but he also does a brilliant job with the more atmospheric, intense moments of the book -- such as a blissed-out, hag-ridden Sam drifting around Washington.
Sam makes a good sharp-tongued, quick-witted hero who still has time to feel sorry about killing a poor innocent cat, although Mary is somewhat two-dimensional until the end of the book (when we find out more about her). The Old Man is perhaps the most compelling character: an incredibly smart and ruthless chief of a government agency, who cares deeply about his estranged son but is still willing to put almost everything on the line to save humanity.
Aliens taking over human bodies is something of a cliche now, but "Puppet Masters" is a suitably chilling look at the trope's origins. If you can get past the antiquated attitudes towards women, it's a brilliant little book.
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