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silverflight8The Puppet Masters is a novel about Earth's contact with extra-terrestrials that want to enslave the human population. The protagonist, "Sam Cavanaugh", is an agent working with an unspecified intelligence agency, and the plot follows him as he tries to help beat them back. The extra-terrestrials are slug-like things that clamp onto the back of humans and completely take over their consciousnesses and willpower, and they begin infecting Earth. Like many megalomaniacs, their justification is that humans can't make peace themselves, and wouldn't it be better if someone solved that for them?
There, that's the bare bones of the plot. Heinlein wrote in in 1951, so I give it a pass when it comes to overused plotlines.
The novel's set in the future, so we have cars that fly and some pretty amazing appearance-altering technology (or the intelligence agencies have them anyway) but we also have a very solid Iron Curtain and some commentary about the Soviet Union. That said, the action is mostly closely focussed on Sam. When the agency investigates the disappearance of a couple of its best agents in Iowa, he tags along with the director, the Old Man.
Interestingly, because of the scale of the attack, there's an element of politics and social change involved. The slugs attached to humans make a sometimes hidden hump on the back of a person, and to avoid having one slug-infected person infest the rest (the slugs do so deliberately) the population of America strip. This doesn't exactly go over so well initially, and convincing the President and Congress that there is a serious danger isn't downplayed either.
I'm trying really hard not to think about some underlying stuff in Heinlein's work. I just finished The Puppet Masters and enjoyed it a lot! Except for things which I AM NOT THINKING ABOUT because I really want to enjoy his work. I love the levity and the protagonists.
I also really like how Kelly I think makes the point about having thrown away their rights away, but in a once burned, twice shy way. Wait, not thinking about his political affiliations either, nobody tell me please. Um. But I did like how the slug/titans weren't just a one-episode enemy. They infected and could infect a lot of different animals on earth and it'd be impossible to completely decontaminate the entire planet--there's no quick fix.
I'm seriously boggling over the Venerian colony--the one on Venus. Venus has always struck me as a GODAWFUL TERRIBLE PLACE because of the whole atmosphere and heat thing. The way Heinlein mentions swamps tips past my suspension of disbelief in a way that a colony on Mars doesn't. I mean, it'd boil right off! I don't know why that part stuck out when I happily went along with all sorts of other stuff. But Venus!
The resolution to this one as kind of unsatisfying too, like The Door into Summer, though at least this one skipped the proselytizing. You're going to go to Titan...to try to exterminate them there?? I don't know, this doesn't seem to be a very well thought-out plan, seeing as the journey is very long and Earth's not cleaned up. And you're just going to ditch your daughter (but have more children on the sixteen year journey?) This doesn't make sense. Too dangerous for a child? Then why have another on the journey? Why abandon your firstborn? Graaahh. Though I'm so glad the Old Man didn't die; I was very fond of him.
For some reason I'm really enjoying the books as I read, but afterward--and I mean straight afterward, I finished it maybe five or six hours ago--I have no idea what to say. I start thinking of the holes in logic or clutching points that aren't that important (I really liked the biologists' argument. Heinlein was an engineer and I think it informs his characters, but it was great to see more about biology. Especially the one biologist going: "Don't be anthropocentric!") There are some reviews I complete weeks afterward--I get sidetracked--but still kind of have everything down in the first rush. Here, I don't even know what to say. I don't want to punch holes in it, but argh, there needs to be some more development! Like the other aliens from Titan, which get a quick mention and then are dropped, except for Sam to say that they were probably better--they looked less hideously weird (more humanoid.)
P.S. Dear publishers, in general, book forewords and afterwords are totally extraneous and I skip them. Unless they're works considered to be classics in the literary canon, in which case I'm interested in why the books were critically acclaimed, but seriously, it is overkill to have both a fore- and afterword! By two authors! Also they mislead you about how long the book is >:(
Enjoyed it, can't articulate it, 8/10. Still not thinking about certain things. I wish there was a way to turn off certain parts of the brain's analytics.
There, that's the bare bones of the plot. Heinlein wrote in in 1951, so I give it a pass when it comes to overused plotlines.
The novel's set in the future, so we have cars that fly and some pretty amazing appearance-altering technology (or the intelligence agencies have them anyway) but we also have a very solid Iron Curtain and some commentary about the Soviet Union. That said, the action is mostly closely focussed on Sam. When the agency investigates the disappearance of a couple of its best agents in Iowa, he tags along with the director, the Old Man.
Interestingly, because of the scale of the attack, there's an element of politics and social change involved. The slugs attached to humans make a sometimes hidden hump on the back of a person, and to avoid having one slug-infected person infest the rest (the slugs do so deliberately) the population of America strip. This doesn't exactly go over so well initially, and convincing the President and Congress that there is a serious danger isn't downplayed either.
I'm trying really hard not to think about some underlying stuff in Heinlein's work. I just finished The Puppet Masters and enjoyed it a lot! Except for things which I AM NOT THINKING ABOUT because I really want to enjoy his work. I love the levity and the protagonists.
I also really like how Kelly I think makes the point about having thrown away their rights away, but in a once burned, twice shy way. Wait, not thinking about his political affiliations either, nobody tell me please. Um. But I did like how the slug/titans weren't just a one-episode enemy. They infected and could infect a lot of different animals on earth and it'd be impossible to completely decontaminate the entire planet--there's no quick fix.
I'm seriously boggling over the Venerian colony--the one on Venus. Venus has always struck me as a GODAWFUL TERRIBLE PLACE because of the whole atmosphere and heat thing. The way Heinlein mentions swamps tips past my suspension of disbelief in a way that a colony on Mars doesn't. I mean, it'd boil right off! I don't know why that part stuck out when I happily went along with all sorts of other stuff. But Venus!
The resolution to this one as kind of unsatisfying too, like The Door into Summer, though at least this one skipped the proselytizing. You're going to go to Titan...to try to exterminate them there?? I don't know, this doesn't seem to be a very well thought-out plan, seeing as the journey is very long and Earth's not cleaned up. And you're just going to ditch your daughter (but have more children on the sixteen year journey?) This doesn't make sense. Too dangerous for a child? Then why have another on the journey? Why abandon your firstborn? Graaahh. Though I'm so glad the Old Man didn't die; I was very fond of him.
For some reason I'm really enjoying the books as I read, but afterward--and I mean straight afterward, I finished it maybe five or six hours ago--I have no idea what to say. I start thinking of the holes in logic or clutching points that aren't that important (I really liked the biologists' argument. Heinlein was an engineer and I think it informs his characters, but it was great to see more about biology. Especially the one biologist going: "Don't be anthropocentric!") There are some reviews I complete weeks afterward--I get sidetracked--but still kind of have everything down in the first rush. Here, I don't even know what to say. I don't want to punch holes in it, but argh, there needs to be some more development! Like the other aliens from Titan, which get a quick mention and then are dropped, except for Sam to say that they were probably better--they looked less hideously weird (more humanoid.)
P.S. Dear publishers, in general, book forewords and afterwords are totally extraneous and I skip them. Unless they're works considered to be classics in the literary canon, in which case I'm interested in why the books were critically acclaimed, but seriously, it is overkill to have both a fore- and afterword! By two authors! Also they mislead you about how long the book is >:(
Enjoyed it, can't articulate it, 8/10. Still not thinking about certain things. I wish there was a way to turn off certain parts of the brain's analytics.
A note on historical perspective
Date: Jun. 18th, 2013 05:41 am (UTC)Long story short: it is frankly hard to imagine just how much we've learned in a historically very short amount of time.
Re: A note on historical perspective
Date: Jun. 18th, 2013 09:44 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I doubt anyone expected the explosion of internet fifteen years ago, and that's within our culture. So.
Re: A note on historical perspective
Date: Jun. 19th, 2013 08:25 pm (UTC)I just assumed 1951 (it's not that far into the past!) would have had a decent look at Venus, since we got into space by--uh, Gagarin went in 1961, just a decade later.
And Gagarin just orbited the planet for a few hours before coming back down.
I can't believe how much we've learned in about sixty years.
My dad's father was born in 1899, 5 years before the first powered flight (Kitty Hawk), if memory serves. He fought in the Russian Revolution, when cavalry was still a part of standard warfare. And lived almost 30 years after the first moon landing (he died in 1996).
I dunno if the 20th century will prove to have been the most incredible century of change in history, but it was the most incredible one so far, and no doubt. Again, going strictly from memory, I don't think the fact there is more than one galaxy in the universe was established until the 1920s ...
And it goes on and on, and keeps on speeding up.
On the other hand, I doubt anyone expected the explosion of internet fifteen years ago, and that's within our culture. So.
Not quite no one. E.M. Forster, of all people, came awfully close and a lot more than 15 years ago: "The Machine Stops" is online here. It's actually a pretty good story, but if you just want the gist, all-mighty Wikipedia has the précis.