The Puppet Masters
by Robert A. Heinlein · first published 1951
33% recommend33% neutral33% critical
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 back. Then four more follow up agents 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
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…the benefits of casual nudism; in his prime, though, he was an author and storyteller practically beyond compare. In particular, his The Moon is a Harsh Mistress remains a classic among classics; The Puppet Masters even more so, to the extent of spawning practically a whole subgenre of second-rate imitations; and, for a lighter entry, his oft-overlooked The Door into Summer is a sweet story in which all's well that…
on “What are your favourite sci-fi books?” ↗…running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. I can also say that in 1951 Heinlein was well aware that research was much more than 'narrow document retrieval'. Consider "The Puppet Masters" from that year, chapter IV: > "At the library I went to the catalogue, put on blinkers and started scanning for references. "Flying Saucers" led to "Flying Disks," then to "Project Saucer," then "Lights…
on “Why Futurism Has a Cultural Blindspot” ↗…be a story about a god-like entity that appears, saves the libertarians from their inability to play well with others, and then disappears before we get to ask any questions about its existence, or The Puppet Masters to be tedious (yeah, I get it, commies bad) and to demonstrate that Heinlein wasn't very good at seeing the consequences of his ideas,...I get a lot of crankiness from the same "humanities are about…
on “I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)” ↗Hmm. There are some science fiction tropes that become really obvious when you start looking for them. For one, check out Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Heinlein's Puppet Masters: that's "the Commies are among us", and it's not surprising that it became a significant thing in the 1950s. Although the idea that there are a group of people out there who look and act completely normal…
on “Yet another novel I will no longer write” ↗