The Puppet Masters

Did You Know?

• Sam, born Elihu Nivens, is the classic Heinlein hero, multi-talented, independent, fiercely loyal to friends and an implacable enemy to foes.
• Mary, born Allucquere in a religious commune in Antarctica before growing up on Venus, is Heinlein's classic heroine, described by Sam as having the real redheaded saurian bony structure to her skull.

Background

The story opens in 2007, after a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc left both sides damaged but still standing, and the Cold War resumed. Washington, D.C., and other American cities hit by atomic bombs were fully reconstructed. The Soviet Union and China remained a single Moscow-led alliance, with no sign of the late-1950s split between them. Social norms had loosened, allowing marriage contracts with set expiration dates. Personal flying cars and ray guns were everyday items, while old-fashioned bullet-firing guns were seen as outdated by experts. Venus hosted human colonies and was portrayed as a warm, tropical world. Most secret agents carried a drug called tempus fugit, which kept them awake and stretched their sense of time by ten times or more, though it caused mild euphoria and was not addictive. Space travel had leaped far ahead of real 2007 technology; one warship embarked on a twelve-year journey to Titan, carrying enough supplies for a large crew and weapons to challenge an entire planet. Yet no one had invented communications satellites, so television signals still traveled only in straight lines. The United States was split into many transmission zones, each passing broadcasts to its neighbors. When the alien invaders took over a zone, they seized all local communications, cut off its people from the outside, and took their time tightening their grip.

Plot

In the summer of 2007, slug-like creatures arriving in flying saucers attach themselves to people's backs, taking control of their victims' nervous systems. The Old Man, head of a clandestine agency called the Section, goes to Des Moines, Iowa, with agents Sam and Mary to investigate a flying saucer report and the disappearance of six agents sent previously. They discover the slugs are steadily taking over Des Moines but cannot convince the US president to declare an emergency. Sam returns with two other agents for more evidence; they fail and flee, but a slug gains control of one agent. Back in Washington the team captures the slug, but it escapes and attaches itself to Sam, using his skills to escape. While controlled, Sam uses the Constitution Club to gain more hosts for the slugs. The Old Man captures Sam, takes him to Section's new headquarters, and coerces him into being possessed again. Under drug-induced hypnosis, Sam reveals the slugs come from Titan. The Section exposes several possessed congressmen at a session of Congress, finally persuading Congress that the United States is under attack. A law is passed requiring people to have bare backs to demonstrate they are not carrying slugs. The Army prepares a counterattack in heavily infested areas, planning to take over broadcast centers. Sam drives alone to Kansas City and discovers the slugs possess almost all residents. He returns to Washington too late to stop the operation, which fails; the invading soldiers are either killed or captured by the slugs.

Alternative version

The novel Heinlein originally wrote was 96,000 words, but both the 1951 book release and the Galaxy Science Fiction serialization trimmed it to 72,000. Galaxy's editor, H. L. Gold, heavily reworked the text for the serial, a move Heinlein strongly opposed. After Heinlein died, his widow Virginia approved an expanded edition in 1990. This version restored material removed from the 1951 publication, which had been considered too lengthy and provocative for its time. What seemed risqué in 1951 had mellowed with age; for instance, the uncut edition opens with Sam waking up next to a blonde he picked up without learning her name, a scene entirely absent from the earlier version. The 1951 edition did retain a plot point where possessed men lose all sexual feeling, but the publisher completely excised a later reference to the puppet masters discovering sexuality and staging televised orgies in their controlled zones. All mentions of the Soviet Union were also cut.

Influence

Jack Finney's 1954 novel The Body Snatchers explores a similar idea of aliens seizing human forms, and it has been adapted into several movies. In Fredric Brown's 1956 book What Mad Universe, as in The Puppet Masters, authorities and armed citizens shoot down anyone they suspect of being possessed by space invaders. Kenneth Von Gunden's Star Spawn moves the alien parasite concept into a medieval setting, where extraterrestrial creatures take over people in England, conquering castles one by one, until the resourceful Friar Gregory and his ally Sir Morrough the Knight stop them. N. K. Jemisin's short story "Walking Awake," from her collection How Long 'til Black Future Month?, directly responds to Heinlein's work. It follows Sadie, a caregiver who helps run a system that breeds human bodies for alien parasites—parasites that turn out to be a human creation from long ago. Stephenie Meyer's 2008 novel The Host revisits the alien parasite premise, telling the story from the invaders' perspective.