The trend for body mountains turned out to be far from modern, as people wrote similar stories in the middle of the last century. For example, in his 1951 novel «The Puppet Masters», the prominent American writer Robert Heinlein created an Earth where slug aliens from Titan landed. They took over the human body by clinging to the back and then to other parts of the body. If you’re interested, this is the book we’re going to talk about today. Meet — the novel by Heinlein that set the fashion for alien invasions and influenced the alien science fiction genre in general. But how good is it today and is it worth reading? We will give you the answers in this article.
Author Robert Heinlein
Translator Volodymyr Horbatko
Publisher KSD
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 416
Cover Solid
Year of original release 1951
Year of publication 2024
Size 135×205 mm
Website bookclub.ua
2007. A flying saucer allegedly landed in Iowa. The news reports say it’s a prank, but government agents are sent to the scene, and they stop communicating. Now the Old Man — the head of the Secret Service takes over. Together with his two agents, Sam and Mary, he goes to the scene.
The agents seem to find nothing, but something is wrong. It turns out that the slug-like aliens have already captured part of the local population and are quickly, and most importantly, secretly spreading their influence. If things go on like this, the entire planet will be under threat. We need to do something now because soon it will be too late.
If you like books, movies, and TV series about aliens, you should pay attention to the novel «The Puppet Masters». This is one of the first such works, which was published 73 years ago. It was «The Puppet Masters» that inspired various creators, artists, and directors to create their works. Therefore, it is difficult to overestimate the book’s contribution to the development of the alien fiction subgenre.
However, there is another side to the book. It is in fact Heinlein’s allusion to the American society of the time, which was frightened by «McCarthyism» — a tough fight against communists and espionage in favor of the USSR. The novel is full of ambiguous statements and the author’s veiled and not so veiled criticism and reflections on the communists and the actions of the government of the day.
Does this affect the perception of the novel by a modern reader? Definitely yes because if a modern American can catch something, guess something, and partially immerse himself in his history, a Ukrainian will only understand something ambiguous. He will hardly know what it is about unless he asks about the history of the book on the Internet.
But this can be said of almost any American novel from the golden age of science fiction. So why should we not read them now? The main thing here is to understand the nuances in advance and know what to expect and what will definitely not be there.
Although the novel «The Puppet Masters» is easy to read, it probably won’t stand the test of time for some people. For example, for me it did not because of its too simple, almost naive, plot development and unhurried narration. Although I understand that it was a stunning action movie for the time, it’s not the case for contemporary literature anymore.
Regarding the development of technology in the future. Here we are in 2007, and the book, let me remind you, was written in 1951. Humanity has settled Venus, cars fly, there are some video calls and 3D TV, but for the most part, devices and technological development are strange and primitive.
But that’s the fun of such novels because the devices and their general aesthetic appearance are called retrofuturism and are quite romanticized in our time. So «The Puppet Masters» fits perfectly this term and the fashion for fantastic retro. And they also have every chance of getting a stylish adaptation in the spirit of «Body Snatchers» with a dash of «Space Odyssey» and noir detective.
The story itself is interesting and has stood the test of time well, despite the aforementioned simplicity. However, its development and some love deviations look strange in our time. The author seems to be deliberately stretching the book, filling the plot with additional details, the development of secondary lines, and so on. But in general, everything is very active, especially for a novel that is more than 70 years old.
The characters are not all right either. More precisely, with the heroine. At first, Mary is shown as an independent woman and a super-useful, dangerous, and strong agent. But the further the story progresses, the more the typical «femininity» is manifested in her. In the end, she completely «loses» herself and simply becomes dependent on the protagonist, weak-willed and too soft.
I look like a fierce feminist now, and let me be. Because you still have to be able to distort the female image and go through all the clichéd «weak» sex characters. I think it may have been normal at the time, but now it seems strange even to men. And any sane girl will hate not only this Mary, but also Heinlein himself.
If we generalize and analyze the novel in terms of the influence of time in general, then «The Puppet Masters», at least for me, barely passes it. For example, «Me — Legend» Richard Matheson released three years later reads much more interesting and lively in 2024 than Puppeteers». But this does not mean that this novel is not worth your attention.
It has an interesting idea and its realization, a wonderful and fashionable retro-futuristic style, unusual alien slugs that literally force almost all of America to take off their clothes, and most importantly, the story itself often and abruptly changes direction, which makes me follow it with interest because I could never guess what the author was up to.
And in general, this is Heinlein, the legacy of one of the most famous and influential science fiction writers in the history of literature. That’s why his novels, and those translated into Ukrainian, are definitely worth reading. It gives you an understanding of the genre and its origins, development, and borrowings. This is a kind of slice of the history of science fiction, a product of a bygone era that still remains in the hearts of many fans of the genre.
As for the publication itself from «KSD», the book is part of their new «KultREAD» series. It has a modern and stylized cover and flyleaves with pictures, which immediately gives an understanding of the genre of the book if someone suddenly does not know the name of the writer. The font here is easy to read and of adequate size. There are no gussets.
