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, and 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.
Background The novel starts in 2007. Following a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc, which left both sides battered but unbroken, both sides return to a state of Cold War. Washington, D.C., and other US cities devastated in nuclear strikes had been completely rebuilt. The Soviet Union and China remain a single bloc dominated by Moscow, and the sharp Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s never happened. 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 ray guns and personal flying cars are commonplace. "Slug throwing guns" remain in possession of some private citizens, but are considered obsolete by professionals. Space stations exist and colonies have been established on the planet Venus (depicted, as common in science fiction of the time, as a tropical planet habitable by humans). Most agents carry a tube of a wakefulness-promoting drug known as "tempus fugit." Although it is considered not habit-forming, it does produce a mild euphoria, but is mostly used to stretch out the user's subjective perception of time 'by a factor of ten or more'. 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 to confront an entire world on its own. However, communications satellites have not been thought of, and television broadcasts are still limited to line-of-sight, as they were at the time of writing. This is of critical importance to the plot. The territory of the United States is divided into numerous transmission blocks, which receive television 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 current president—on his second term—had established directly upon being first elected a new intelligence agency, known as the Section. Its creation was never authorized by Congress and its existence is kept secret, being funded by sums diverted from innocuous sounding items in the budget. It has a disguised underground headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a network of similarly disguised branch offices around the US. Unlike the clearly demarked spheres of the FBI and CIA, the Section carries out extensive espionage in Soviet territory but also conducts operations inside the United States. If ordered to, its agents are ready to shoot and kill American citizens on US soil. The Section's Director, who had been the president's campaign manager, is universally called "The Old Man". Only gradually does the reader learn that he is the protagonist's actual father.
Plot
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