The Puppet Masters

The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein Signet P2863 Sixth printing Publisher is Signet Paperback 4.25 x 7 inches, 175 pages The Puppet Masters is a 1951 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, in which American secret agents battle parasitic invaders from outer space. It was originally serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction (September, October, November 1951). The novel evokes a sense of paranoia and Heinlein repeatedly makes explicit the analogy between the mind-controlling parasites and the Communist Russians, echoing the prevailing Second Red Scare in the United States. The book takes up the then common theme of sightings of Flying saucers, the plot assuming that the "saucers" seen in the 1950s were part of a preliminary reconnaissance of Earth, carried out by the extraterrestrials in preparation for a full-fledged invasion sixty years later. Boucher and McComas characterized The Puppet Masters as "a thunderously exciting melodrama of intrigue", noting that Heinlein displayed "not only his usual virtues of clear logic, rigorous detail-work, and mastery of indirect exposition", but also unexpected virtues like "a startling facility in suspense devices and a powerful ingenuity in plotting". P. Schuyler Miller, noting that the novel's "climactic situations seem to be telegraphed", suggested that Heinlein presented his background situations so effectively that readers solve the story's mysteries more quickly than Heinlein allowed his characters to. In his "Books" column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Damon Knight selected the novel as one of the 10 best SF books of the 1950s. The book was also reviewed in the 1951 Jun 15 issue of Kirkus Reviews. The reviewer wrote, The recurrent enigma of the flying saucer is finally solved when an aerial pieplate is caught with its exhaust down by the F.B.I. of 2007. Hero Sam penetrates the contaminated area, brings a 'master' back — a gelatinous gray mass which attaches itself to a soldier's body and controls his thought processes. Sam and his girl spot further landings, plan a counter campaign and eventually are able to rid the solar system of its parasites. Exciting, even if it exacts a strong stomach. An extensive list of the novel's publications can be found on the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1358 (Retrieved 2014 Oct 23)