The Puppet Masters: Somewhat icky

The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein

Unfriendly aliens from Titan have arrived on Earth and are planning to conquer us. To do this, the slug-like beings latch onto the backs of their human hosts and take over their bodies and minds. The aliens are rapidly spreading in the Midwest and they’ve managed to infiltrate the Treasury Department. To make world domination go even faster and easier, they’re planning to get the President of the United States. That’s why Sam Cavanaugh, secret agent, has been called in from his vacation. He’s teaming up with Mary, a beautiful red-head, to stop the invasion. But Sam and Mary soon learn that even secret agents are susceptible to alien body snatching…. and falling in love.

There’s plenty of action in The Puppet Masters — chases, capture, torture, escape, reconnaissance missions, hide-outs, vehicle crashes, parachute landings, vigilantes, and even a plague. And since this is Robert A. Heinlein, along the way there’s also plenty of skimpy dressing and nudity, an “insta-love” marriage, men paddling women’s behinds, a girl fight, some racist speech (“that’s mighty white of you”) and a lot of sexism. Sam’s boss says “most women are damn fools and children,” Sam praises Mary for not chattering at breakfast, and Mary — remember that she’s a government agent — doesn’t help when she stupidly declares “why ask me, darling? I don’t have an analytical brain.”

Those are just a few examples out of many I could point out. I have a feeling that Heinlein never expected his novels to be read by anybody who wasn’t a white man. I really hate that about Heinlein’s novels for adults, but at least this story has an exciting plot and some point other than all that icky stuff (I say this because some of his novels don’t). Interestingly, this novel was considered too risqué for publication in 1951 and some of its scenes were deleted. Blackstone Audio’s version, expertly read by Tom Weiner (one of my favorites), is the unedited version.

In his introduction to The Puppet Masters, William H. Patterson Jr tells us that the story’s appearance was timely when it was first serialized in Galaxy magazine in 1951. The Kenneth Arnold UFO sightings had recently occurred, the term “flying saucer” had just entered our vocabulary, and Americans were also worried about soviet spy planes. It was a time of paranoia and The Puppet Masters, one of the first novels about aliens in flying saucers, helped feed the frenzy and spawned a stream of books and movies of similar theme (including one of my favorite cheesy movies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers). But Patterson points out that Heinlein’s story is always timely because it’s not so much about extraterrestrial aliens as it is about “the real aliens among us.” Heinlein himself, who rarely analyzed his own work for us, calls The Puppet Masters a “diatribe against totalitarianism in all its forms.” And today’s readers will immediately recognize its relevance at a time when Americans are debating the cost of national security at the expense of individual privacy.

~Kat Hooper

The Puppet Masters: Early Heinlein at his most embarrassing. DNF.

Slug-like alien invaders who land and take over Des Moines, Iowa, 50s-style cold war paranoia, wise-cracking secret super agents, and a totally hot red-headed babe with deadly weapons concealed on a voluptuous body who is strong-willed but still totally subservient to our intrepid, tough-talking hero Sam. Yes, that would be a Robert A. Heinlein book, this one first published back in 1951. Apparently what I read was the extended version, and I guess they just stuffed back all the embarrassingly-bad, sexy repartee and other bits that should have remained on the editing floor.

Most readers either love or hate Heinlein, and I’ve only read a few of his books, having absolutely hated Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land, but really liked The Door Into Summer and Double Star. So after neglecting The Puppet Masters for 20 years I decided to give it a go. Well, maybe I should have left well enough alone.

I’m afraid this book just really didn’t do anything other than induce shivers of discomfort with its hokey dialogue and cartoon characters. The story itself may seem hackneyed now, but it’s been 60 years so I can’t blame that on Heinlein. But the plot itself just completely stalls partway through the book, as what I would expect to be the finale comes in the middle, so I couldn’t bear to read any further.

We all know that the attitudes toward women could be pretty cavalier and sexist back in the Golden Age of SF, but this book really took the cake. Here are a few choice tidbits to make any reader cringe:

I like nurses; they are calm and earthy and very tolerant. Miss Briggs, my night nurse, was not the mouth-watering job that Doris was; she had a face like a jaundiced horse but she had a fine figure for a woman her age, hard and well cared for.

She took a deep drag, swelling out her chest and pushing her arrogant breasts against her halter almost to the breaking point. I thought again what a sweet dish she was; she was just what I needed to take my mind off Mary.

Listen, son, most women are damn fools and children. But they’ve got more range than we’ve got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better and the vile ones are viler, for that matter.

To sum up, I really didn’t find much to like in this book, but perhaps teenage boys in the 1950’s really liked it. Notably, this was the extended edition of The Puppet Masters (96,000 words vs. the original 60,000), so maybe shorter in this case was better. But I won’t waste any more precious reading time finding out.

~Stuart Starosta