The Puppet Masters
Encyclopedia
The Puppet Masters is a 1951 science fiction
novel by Robert A. Heinlein
in which American secret agents battle parasitic invaders from outer space. The novel was originally serialised in Galaxy Science Fiction
(September, October, November 1951).
Thematically, the book evokes a sense of paranoia
later captured in the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which had a similar premise. Heinlein's novel also repeatedly makes explicit the analogy between the mind-controlling parasites and the Communist Russians, echoing the emerging Red Scare
in the U.S.
" genre within science fiction
. His approach to the story is different from most preceding invasion stories. It does not present the "helpless humanity" angle typical of stories from The War of the Worlds onwards, nor does it simply dress up conventional horror themes in the trappings of science fiction. While the invaders are horrifying enough, the focus of the plot is very much the practical business of, on the one hand, the aliens mounting the invasion, and on the other, the efforts of free humans to defeat it.
The setting is the early 21st century (the first scene takes place on July 12, 2007). There had been a nuclear war
between the Soviet Union and the West which left both sides battered but unbroken, and following the hot war they just went back to the Cold War
. The Soviet Union and China remain a single bloc dominated by Moscow, and the sharp Sino-Soviet breach of the late 1950s had not happened. (A casual reference to Kurdish
as one of the languages which an agent "behind the curtain" finds useful indicates that the Soviets have at some time taken over some Kurdish-speaking areas ).
Social customs have changed somewhat, in a way typical for Heinlein's fiction (i.e. having become more liberal, such as marriage contracts being possible with fixed terms etc.) and rayguns and personal flying cars are commonplace. Space stations exist and colonies have been established on the planet Venus
.
Space technology is far more advanced than in the actual first decade of the 21st century. For example, in the last scene, a space warship is sent on a twelve-year trip to Titan, with not only life-support for a large crew but also enough armaments - presumably nuclear - to all by itself confront an entire world. However, communications satellite
s have not been thought of, and TV broadcasts are still limited to line-of-sight, as they were at the time of writing.
This has a crucial importance for the plot. A big country like the United States is divided into numerous "blocks" which receive TV broadcasts from their neighbors and relay them onwards. When the invaders seize one of these "blocks", they effectively control all communications within it and can isolate its inhabitants from the outside world, deny the central government any access to them and consolidate control at their leisure.
The book was written when the wave of supposed flying saucer
sightings was at its peak and getting enormous attention in the US media. The actual spaceship of the invaders is a "flying saucer'.
The term "puppet masters" of the title only occurs twice in the book itself, including the very last statement where the narrator writes: "I feel exhilarated. Puppet masters - the free men are coming to kill you! Death and Destruction!"
Called in by "the Old Man", his boss and the head of the organization, they go to investigate the report of a flying saucer landing in Grinnell, Iowa
after several other agents fail to report back. With them is another agent named "Mary", a stunningly beautiful redhead. Sam is informed that her life is only slightly less precious than the Old Man's, and that he (Sam) is the most expendable.
In Iowa, they discover that the people are being brought under the mental control of repulsive, slug-like creatures that attach to their backs, just below the neck. Detaching one slug from its host, they seal it in a film canister and bring it back to headquarters in Washington, D.C.
By the time they get there though, the remains of the slug are a stinking mess, and they are unable to convince the President that there is an invasion.
Sam eventually leads a small team back to Iowa. They inadvertently succeed in capturing a live slug, as one of their number becomes "hagridden" without them realizing it. However, Mary spots it when he does not react like a normal male to her beauty. The agent is unmasked, subdued and confined. The slug escapes by transferring to another person, and eventually to Sam himself. He immediately becomes enslaved and escapes the agency.
Meanwhile, the invasion continues to expand. Slugs are shipped through the mail to recruit more humans. Gradually they infect more and more important people, especially the members of exclusive clubs frequented by politicians. Before the Old Man tracks Sam down and captures him, they have infected the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, whose department controls the United States Secret Service
; the slugs are a step away from infecting the President himself.
By the time Sam recovers in hospital, anyone fully dressed is suspect. The Old Man wants someone to "wear" the slug so it can be interrogated. Sam cannot bear the idea, but when Mary volunteers, he gives in and does it himself. He is completely aware of himself when possessed, but totally committed to the slugs' cause. The slug dies under torture from electric shocks, but in the process Sam learns that they come from Titan
, the largest moon of Saturn
.
Thoroughly disgusted by the treatment he has received, Sam is ready to quit. He is at first furious with Mary for entrapping him, and then with the Old Man, when he learns that his boss tricked Mary into it. At this point, it is revealed that the Old Man is Sam's father.
Eventually the politicians realize the danger. From Minnesota to Louisiana, the center of the country has been taken over. On a solo mission to Kansas City
, Sam is shocked to discover that the number of slugs is much greater than thought. Instead of taking over key people, they have absorbed the entire human population of the occupied territory. However, he and the Old Man are unable to convince the President to stop a meticulously planned military counterinvasion of the heartland; the entire force is taken over by the enemy. They find that slugs are capable of fissioning in two fairly quickly. The number of infected humans must now be so large that any military action would kill tens of millions.
The problem having reached a scale beyond their ability to influence it, Sam and Mary are given leave. By this time, they have fallen in love and get married before going to Sam's bolt-hole in the Adirondack Mountains
. Their idyll is interrupted when a slug takes over first his beloved pet cat, then Mary. Sam manages to push Mary onto a hot fire to kill the slug, leaving them both badly burned, but alive and free.
Returning to HQ for treatment, they find that a new law requires everyone to be functionally naked to show that a slug is not in control. The law is rigorously enforced not as much by police as by vigilante
s, who often shoot first and confirm afterward.
Sam begins to believe that the slugs have him marked for repossession. They can communicate by "direct conference", where their hosts sit back to back and the slugs partially merge. A network of such interactions could spread his description rapidly among the invaders, who knew how valuable he is. Some scientists even speculate that the slugs are really just one organism in many bodies.
For their part, the slugs drop all pretenses and openly wage war on the states to their east and west. Where human hosts cannot go, they use animals such as dogs, horses and even elephants.
Sam and Mary go with the Old Man to investigate a saucer which crash-landed in Mississippi
. Inside they encounter the slugs' hosts from Titan, small elf-like creatures, who died when Earth's air entered the ship. There are also tanks containing humans in suspended animation
. Mary has a mental breakdown when she enters the ship. It triggers long-suppressed memories from when she was a child in a failed Venus colony which was taken over by slugs. She herself spent years in one of the tanks. Mary caught a disease which killed her slug.
They discover that the disease is "Nine-day Fever", which is almost 100% fatal if untreated. However, they find that it kills slugs faster than humans. It might just be possible to spread the fever among the slugs using "direct conference", and then treat as many humans as possible before they die.
The Old Man springs a surprise on Sam. He had expected Sam to replace him one day, and would show when he was ready by bucking the Old Man's authority. From now on, Sam is in charge, official titles notwithstanding.
Time is short – diseases erupt in the infected areas, as the slugs neglect hygiene and often drive their hosts until they starve. Outbreaks of plague in the Communist countries suggest that they were taken over even before the center of the United States.
The counterattack begins. Releasing animals with infected slugs into enemy territory, they wait for the epidemic to break out. Days pass, and then calls start coming in from desperate people whose slugs have died. Hundreds of thousands of agents, Sam and the Old Man among them, parachute in to treat victims with drug-dispensing guns. Just when the battle seems won, the Old Man is possessed by one of the few healthy slugs and kidnaps Sam, intending to take them both into hiding to regroup for a new invasion. Sam watches in horror as the Old Man's slug begins dividing so he too can be possessed. Despite being tied up, Sam is able to crash their flyer into the sea, killing the slug.
In the final section, Sam writes in a journal before embarking with Mary on a ship which will take the battle to Titan. The slugs will remain a problem for years to come, having infected too many parts of the Earth to root out easily, but they will never be able to take over.
In 1990, two years after Heinlein's death, an expanded version was published with the consent of his widow, Virginia Heinlein
. This edition contained material that had been cut from the original published version, because the book was deemed to be too long and controversial for the market in 1951. The uncut version was more risqué in 1951 than it was nearly 40 years later. For example, in the uncut version the book begins with Sam waking up in bed with a blonde whom he had casually picked up the evening before, without even bothering to learn her name; the older version omitted all mention of her. The 1951 version does mention that men possessed by the invaders lost all sexual feeling - an essential element in the early parts of the plot; but the original publisher completely cut out a reference to the "puppet masters" later discovering human sexuality and embarking upon wild orgies, broadcast live on TV in the areas under their control.
An uncut version of Stranger in a Strange Land
was also released around the same time. Although ISBN numbers are not supposed to be reused for different editions, the publisher used ISBN 0345330145 for both a 1986 mass market paperback edition of the shortened version and the mass market paperback edition of the long version, which is the one presently in print.
The versions can be distinguished by the 1986 or 1990 date on the copyright page, and by text in the long version on page 1 reading "With the Soviets..."
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," as well as 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 Heilein 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 F&SF, Damon Knight
selected the novel as one of the 10 best sf books of the 1950's.
, a 1958 film directed by Bruno VeSota, bore a number of similarities to Heinlein's novel. Heinlein sued the producers for plagiarism
. The case was settled out of court.
The theme of the novel is echoed in "The Invisibles", an episode of The Outer Limits
aired in 1964, and also in "Operation: Annihilate!", the last episode of the first season of Star Trek
in 1967. Similarly, in the story line begun in the Star Trek: The Next Generation
episode "Coming of Age" and completed in "Conspiracy", aliens from a faraway sector invade the bodies of high-ranking Starfleet admirals in an attempt to compromise the command structure and spearhead an invasion of Earth.
The novel was adapted, with some plot and character changes, into the screenplay
for a 1994 film of the same name The Puppet Masters
starring Donald Sutherland
. Although the film followed the story rather closely (except for references to Venus or Titan) it was not successful with either the critics or the public. (Sutherland also starred in the remade Invasion of the Body Snatchers, another tale of aliens taking over humans.)
The 1998 film The Faculty
, directed by Robert Rodriguez
from a Kevin Williamson screenplay, is about a fictional high school at which the faculty and staff become taken over by alien parasites. In the film one of the characters mumbles that Jack Finney
's novel The Body Snatchers
is "a blatant rip off" of Heinlein's novel. In turn, the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers is based on that novel.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
in which American secret agents battle parasitic invaders from outer space. The novel was originally serialised in Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
(September, October, November 1951).
Thematically, the book evokes a sense of paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
later captured in the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which had a similar premise. Heinlein's novel also repeatedly makes explicit the analogy between the mind-controlling parasites and the Communist Russians, echoing the emerging Red Scare
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
in the U.S.
Plot introduction
This novel is Heinlein's only foray into the "alien invasionAlien invasion
The alien invasion is a common theme in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial life invades Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, harvest humans for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.The...
" genre within science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. His approach to the story is different from most preceding invasion stories. It does not present the "helpless humanity" angle typical of stories from The War of the Worlds onwards, nor does it simply dress up conventional horror themes in the trappings of science fiction. While the invaders are horrifying enough, the focus of the plot is very much the practical business of, on the one hand, the aliens mounting the invasion, and on the other, the efforts of free humans to defeat it.
The setting is the early 21st century (the first scene takes place on July 12, 2007). There had been a nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
between the Soviet Union and the West which left both sides battered but unbroken, and following the hot war they just went back to the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. The Soviet Union and China remain a single bloc dominated by Moscow, and the sharp Sino-Soviet breach of the late 1950s had not happened. (A casual reference to Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
as one of the languages which an agent "behind the curtain" finds useful indicates that the Soviets have at some time taken over some Kurdish-speaking areas ).
Social customs have changed somewhat, in a way typical for Heinlein's fiction (i.e. having become more liberal, such as marriage contracts being possible with fixed terms etc.) and rayguns and personal flying cars are commonplace. Space stations exist and colonies have been established on the planet Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
.
Space technology is far more advanced than in the actual first decade of the 21st century. For example, in the last scene, a space warship is sent on a twelve-year trip to Titan, with not only life-support for a large crew but also enough armaments - presumably nuclear - to all by itself confront an entire world. However, communications satellite
Communications satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunications...
s have not been thought of, and TV broadcasts are still limited to line-of-sight, as they were at the time of writing.
This has a crucial importance for the plot. A big country like the United States is divided into numerous "blocks" which receive TV broadcasts from their neighbors and relay them onwards. When the invaders seize one of these "blocks", they effectively control all communications within it and can isolate its inhabitants from the outside world, deny the central government any access to them and consolidate control at their leisure.
The book was written when the wave of supposed flying saucer
Flying saucer
A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...
sightings was at its peak and getting enormous attention in the US media. The actual spaceship of the invaders is a "flying saucer'.
The term "puppet masters" of the title only occurs twice in the book itself, including the very last statement where the narrator writes: "I feel exhilarated. Puppet masters - the free men are coming to kill you! Death and Destruction!"
Plot summary
"Sam" is an agent in an intelligence organization within the United States government, so secret it reports only to the President, and is entirely unknown to anyone else. He is superbly trained, equipped with a built-in communicator he calls a "skull phone" as well as a number of ways to commit suicide if the need arises.Called in by "the Old Man", his boss and the head of the organization, they go to investigate the report of a flying saucer landing in Grinnell, Iowa
Grinnell, Iowa
Grinnell is a city in Poweshiek County, Iowa, United States. The population was 9,218 at the 2010 census. Grinnell was named after Josiah Bushnell Grinnell and is the home of Grinnell College.- History :...
after several other agents fail to report back. With them is another agent named "Mary", a stunningly beautiful redhead. Sam is informed that her life is only slightly less precious than the Old Man's, and that he (Sam) is the most expendable.
In Iowa, they discover that the people are being brought under the mental control of repulsive, slug-like creatures that attach to their backs, just below the neck. Detaching one slug from its host, they seal it in a film canister and bring it back to headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
By the time they get there though, the remains of the slug are a stinking mess, and they are unable to convince the President that there is an invasion.
Sam eventually leads a small team back to Iowa. They inadvertently succeed in capturing a live slug, as one of their number becomes "hagridden" without them realizing it. However, Mary spots it when he does not react like a normal male to her beauty. The agent is unmasked, subdued and confined. The slug escapes by transferring to another person, and eventually to Sam himself. He immediately becomes enslaved and escapes the agency.
Meanwhile, the invasion continues to expand. Slugs are shipped through the mail to recruit more humans. Gradually they infect more and more important people, especially the members of exclusive clubs frequented by politicians. Before the Old Man tracks Sam down and captures him, they have infected the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, whose department controls the United States Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
; the slugs are a step away from infecting the President himself.
By the time Sam recovers in hospital, anyone fully dressed is suspect. The Old Man wants someone to "wear" the slug so it can be interrogated. Sam cannot bear the idea, but when Mary volunteers, he gives in and does it himself. He is completely aware of himself when possessed, but totally committed to the slugs' cause. The slug dies under torture from electric shocks, but in the process Sam learns that they come from Titan
Titan (moon)
Titan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
, the largest moon of Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
.
Thoroughly disgusted by the treatment he has received, Sam is ready to quit. He is at first furious with Mary for entrapping him, and then with the Old Man, when he learns that his boss tricked Mary into it. At this point, it is revealed that the Old Man is Sam's father.
Eventually the politicians realize the danger. From Minnesota to Louisiana, the center of the country has been taken over. On a solo mission to Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, Sam is shocked to discover that the number of slugs is much greater than thought. Instead of taking over key people, they have absorbed the entire human population of the occupied territory. However, he and the Old Man are unable to convince the President to stop a meticulously planned military counterinvasion of the heartland; the entire force is taken over by the enemy. They find that slugs are capable of fissioning in two fairly quickly. The number of infected humans must now be so large that any military action would kill tens of millions.
The problem having reached a scale beyond their ability to influence it, Sam and Mary are given leave. By this time, they have fallen in love and get married before going to Sam's bolt-hole in the Adirondack Mountains
Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains are a mountain range located in the northeastern part of New York, that runs through Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Saint Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties....
. Their idyll is interrupted when a slug takes over first his beloved pet cat, then Mary. Sam manages to push Mary onto a hot fire to kill the slug, leaving them both badly burned, but alive and free.
Returning to HQ for treatment, they find that a new law requires everyone to be functionally naked to show that a slug is not in control. The law is rigorously enforced not as much by police as by vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
s, who often shoot first and confirm afterward.
Sam begins to believe that the slugs have him marked for repossession. They can communicate by "direct conference", where their hosts sit back to back and the slugs partially merge. A network of such interactions could spread his description rapidly among the invaders, who knew how valuable he is. Some scientists even speculate that the slugs are really just one organism in many bodies.
For their part, the slugs drop all pretenses and openly wage war on the states to their east and west. Where human hosts cannot go, they use animals such as dogs, horses and even elephants.
Sam and Mary go with the Old Man to investigate a saucer which crash-landed in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. Inside they encounter the slugs' hosts from Titan, small elf-like creatures, who died when Earth's air entered the ship. There are also tanks containing humans in suspended animation
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...
. Mary has a mental breakdown when she enters the ship. It triggers long-suppressed memories from when she was a child in a failed Venus colony which was taken over by slugs. She herself spent years in one of the tanks. Mary caught a disease which killed her slug.
They discover that the disease is "Nine-day Fever", which is almost 100% fatal if untreated. However, they find that it kills slugs faster than humans. It might just be possible to spread the fever among the slugs using "direct conference", and then treat as many humans as possible before they die.
The Old Man springs a surprise on Sam. He had expected Sam to replace him one day, and would show when he was ready by bucking the Old Man's authority. From now on, Sam is in charge, official titles notwithstanding.
Time is short – diseases erupt in the infected areas, as the slugs neglect hygiene and often drive their hosts until they starve. Outbreaks of plague in the Communist countries suggest that they were taken over even before the center of the United States.
The counterattack begins. Releasing animals with infected slugs into enemy territory, they wait for the epidemic to break out. Days pass, and then calls start coming in from desperate people whose slugs have died. Hundreds of thousands of agents, Sam and the Old Man among them, parachute in to treat victims with drug-dispensing guns. Just when the battle seems won, the Old Man is possessed by one of the few healthy slugs and kidnaps Sam, intending to take them both into hiding to regroup for a new invasion. Sam watches in horror as the Old Man's slug begins dividing so he too can be possessed. Despite being tied up, Sam is able to crash their flyer into the sea, killing the slug.
In the final section, Sam writes in a journal before embarking with Mary on a ship which will take the battle to Titan. The slugs will remain a problem for years to come, having infected too many parts of the Earth to root out easily, but they will never be able to take over.
Characters in The Puppet Masters
- Sam, born Elihu Nivens, is the classic Heinlein hero, multi-talented, independent, fiercely loyal to friends and an implacable enemy to foes. He is thirtyish, but has changed appearance so many times even he has doubts as to how he originally looked.
- Mary, born Allucquere in a religious commune on Venus, is Heinlein's classic heroine. She is tall, red-headed, hard-nosed and brilliant. Sam describes her as having the "real redheaded saurian bony structure to her skull". Her professional exterior conceals psychological scars from her encounter with the slugs as a child. Only the Old Man knows the truth about her, thanks to the deep hypnotic analysis that all agents have to undergo. (Academic theorist, artist, and performer Allucquere Rosanne Stone (born Zelig Ben-Natan) lived near the Heinleins at some point in the late 1960s and took the unusual name, but is rather evasive about the exact circumstances.)
- The Old Man, born Andrew Nivens, is the head of a top secret government agency that he wishes did not have to exist, doing his job reluctantly because nobody else would do it properly. He represents the third of Heinlein's favorite types of character, the "wise, grumpy old man". He is the first in the line that includes Jubal HarshawJubal HarshawJubal Harshaw is a fictional character featured in Stranger in a Strange Land, a novel by Robert A. Heinlein. He is described as: "Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, neo-pessimist philosopher, devout agnostic, professional clown,...
, Professor Bernardo de la PazThe Moon Is a Harsh MistressThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth....
, Johann Sebastian Bach SmithI Will Fear No EvilI Will Fear No Evil is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialised in Galaxy and published in hardcover in 1970...
, and the later life of Lazarus LongLazarus LongLazarus Long is a fictional character featured in a number of science fiction novels by Robert A. Heinlein. Born in 1912 in the third generation of a selective breeding experiment run by the Ira Howard Foundation, Lazarus becomes unusually long-lived, living well over two thousand years with the...
. (Lazarus Long's grandfather, who has a major role in the later part of Time Enough for LoveTime Enough for LoveTime Enough for Love is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published in 1973. The work was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973 and both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1974.-Plot:...
, is particularly similar in character to "The Old Man".)
Alternative version
Heinlein's original version of the novel was 96,000 words, and was cut to about 60,000 words for both the 1951 book version and the serialization in Galaxy. For the Galaxy version, editor H.L. Gold also did extensive rewriting, to which Heinlein strenuously objected, with only partial success.In 1990, two years after Heinlein's death, an expanded version was published with the consent of his widow, Virginia Heinlein
Virginia Heinlein
Virginia "Ginny" Heinlein , born Virginia Doris Gerstenfeld, was the third wife of Robert A. Heinlein, a prominent and successful author once known as one of the "Big Three" of science fiction .Born to George and Jeanne Gerstenfeld, Virginia was raised in Brooklyn and had one brother, Leon...
. This edition contained material that had been cut from the original published version, because the book was deemed to be too long and controversial for the market in 1951. The uncut version was more risqué in 1951 than it was nearly 40 years later. For example, in the uncut version the book begins with Sam waking up in bed with a blonde whom he had casually picked up the evening before, without even bothering to learn her name; the older version omitted all mention of her. The 1951 version does mention that men possessed by the invaders lost all sexual feeling - an essential element in the early parts of the plot; but the original publisher completely cut out a reference to the "puppet masters" later discovering human sexuality and embarking upon wild orgies, broadcast live on TV in the areas under their control.
An uncut version of Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and...
was also released around the same time. Although ISBN numbers are not supposed to be reused for different editions, the publisher used ISBN 0345330145 for both a 1986 mass market paperback edition of the shortened version and the mass market paperback edition of the long version, which is the one presently in print.
The versions can be distinguished by the 1986 or 1990 date on the copyright page, and by text in the long version on page 1 reading "With the Soviets..."
Reception
BoucherAnthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
and McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....
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," as well as unexpected virtues like "a startling facility in suspense devices [and] a powerful ingenuity in plotting." . P. Schuyler Miller
P. Schuyler Miller
Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.-Life:Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a life-long interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as an amateur archaeologist and a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.He...
, noting that the novel's "climactic situations seem to be telegraphed," suggested that Heilein 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 F&SF, Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
selected the novel as one of the 10 best sf books of the 1950's.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The Brain EatersThe Brain Eaters
The Brain Eaters is a 1958 science fiction-horror film about alien parasites who invade the small Illinois town of Riverdale and are able to take over any living thing, mind and body, by attaching themselves to their host's back and inserting two mandibles into the base of their spines...
, a 1958 film directed by Bruno VeSota, bore a number of similarities to Heinlein's novel. Heinlein sued the producers for plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. The case was settled out of court.
The theme of the novel is echoed in "The Invisibles", an episode of The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...
aired in 1964, and also in "Operation: Annihilate!", the last episode of the first season of Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
in 1967. Similarly, in the story line begun in the Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
episode "Coming of Age" and completed in "Conspiracy", aliens from a faraway sector invade the bodies of high-ranking Starfleet admirals in an attempt to compromise the command structure and spearhead an invasion of Earth.
The novel was adapted, with some plot and character changes, into the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for a 1994 film of the same name The Puppet Masters
The Puppet Masters (film)
The Puppet Masters is a 1994 science fiction film, adapted by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, and David S. Goyer from Robert A. Heinlein’s 1951 novel of the same title, in which a trio of American government agents attempts to thwart a covert invasion of Earth by mind-controlling alien parasites...
starring Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
. Although the film followed the story rather closely (except for references to Venus or Titan) it was not successful with either the critics or the public. (Sutherland also starred in the remade Invasion of the Body Snatchers, another tale of aliens taking over humans.)
The 1998 film The Faculty
The Faculty
The Faculty is a 1998 science fiction horror film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodriguez...
, directed by Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
from a Kevin Williamson screenplay, is about a fictional high school at which the faculty and staff become taken over by alien parasites. In the film one of the characters mumbles that Jack Finney
Jack Finney
Jack Finney was an American author. His best-known works are science fiction and thrillers, including The Body Snatchers and Time and Again. The former was the basis for the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its remakes.-Biography:Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and given the...
's novel The Body Snatchers
The Body Snatchers
The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel by Jack Finney, originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954, which describes the fictional town of Santa Mira, California being invaded by seeds that have drifted to Earth from space...
is "a blatant rip off" of Heinlein's novel. In turn, the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers is based on that novel.