The puppet masters

[Princess Ivy]

I've picked up a batch of old sci-fi, as i've mentioned elsewhere, and there is quite a bit of heinlein in it. i've started with the puppet masters, but am finding the style very brusque and unsettling with a pace that is an absolute gallop. is this a feature of his writing in general? or just a plot device inteded to show the pace of the invastion of the 'slugs'?

[Ash]

Not all his books are like that. A lot of his later stuff is downright slow and ponderous. I think there is an extent that The Puppet Masters pace might just be a sign of the times rather than an intentional plot device.

So much SF written in the 50s was plot rather than character driven. I guess it was because some of the plots where so new (keep in mind these Puppet Masters predate Invasion of the Body Snatchers by several years) they could get away with skimping on a lot of the other stuff or it was seen as superfulous.

These days it's the other way around I think.

[Princess Ivy]

oh, i know that one. sigh. i'll keep slogging on then.

[knivesout]

The Pupper Masters, if I'm not mistaken, was Heinlein's first work to be published as a novel, although it first appeared as a magazine serial. This would explain some things - as an earlier work, it isn't as well written as some of his later stuff, and writing for an sf pulp magazine probably necessitated a more rapid, gripping way of writing. The best of Heinlein's sf works are stylistically similar to the this one, but the style does get more refined and skillfully used.


The story itself is so-so, but it's notable for a certain tone of distrust of authority, or at least of the government machinery ('the President is the prisoner of Congress') which anticipate Heinlein's full-flown libertarianism in other works. This was also a rather unusual tack to take in the 50s, when, at the height of Cold War paranoia, people were more inclined to treat their government as asbolute and infallible. The heroine of the novel is only the first of several gorgeous, red-haired, capable and romantically oddly soppy heroines in the course of Heinlein's writing career.

[engelbach]

The Puppet Masters follows brilliantly in the ironic tough-guy tradition of writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. It's my all-time favorite of his.

The later refinement of Heinlein's style contributed to his undoing. The man was not a philosopher, and he was embarrassingly preachy and simplistic when he tried to write about ideas.

The Heinlein I know and love is of the early novels and the Future History series.

[Razorback]

I tend to avoid books when I have already seen the movie (which wasn’t very good). Given the comparison to Hammett and Chandler, I’m going to make an exception for this one.

[j. d. worthington]

Razorback: While I have some disagreements with engelbach on Heinlein's later work, I fully support the statements on The Puppet Masters. It's a very taut, edge-of-the-seat sort of thriller with a genuinely frightening horror element; and at the same time it addresses many of the same issues that drove so much of Heinlein's other work. It really is very well worth reading: highly recommended.

[pyan]

Concur - one of his very best.

[TTBRAHWTMG]

Originally Posted by Razorback

I tend to avoid books when I have already seen the movie (which wasn’t very good). Given the comparison to Hammett and Chandler, I’m going to make an exception for this one.

Don't judge Heinlein by the movies they've made. The first half of the Puppet Masters movie stays pretty close, and Sutherland pulls off the feel of the Old Man...but the movie goes to hell in a handbasket. The book is far superior.
The Starship Troopers movie turned a brilliant book into "Bug Hunt 90210"...don't know where I heard that term, but its not mine. It misses all of his commentary on meritocracy. Whether you agree or not, he'll make you think...the movie fails to do this.

Oh, how I envy you. All that untouched Heinlein at your finger tips. They are ALL worth a read...even his weaker works. Don't let critics turn you off his later works. Even his weakest popular work, The Number of the Beast, has so many redeeming qualities that I would still recommend it. Many will argue his later works aren't even science fiction, and will argue about why his later books are so different...less editorial control, reaching out to new readers to gain popularity, expanding on his "World as Myth" themes he just touches earlier in his career, etc.

All worth discussing and debating, but Heinlein would say "As far as I'm concerned, fiction is intended to entertain. If I can manage to entertain with it, that's what the cash customer is paying for. So I don't hesitate to write straight science fiction, straight fantasy, or a mixture of the two-or anything else." Robert Heinlein, The Robert Heinlein Interview.

[Razorback]

Originally Posted by TTBRAHWTMG

Don't judge Heinlein by the movies they've made....

Oh, how I envy you. All that untouched Heinlein at your finger tips. They are ALL worth a read...even his weaker works. Don't let critics turn you off his later works....

Thanks for the feedback TTBRAHWTMG, but not to worry. I was a Heinlein fan before seeing any of the movies. Fortunately, I read Starship Troopers some time before the movie. The movies didn’t do the book justice and I may not have read it if I’d seen the movie first. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the movie as a stand-alone piece of entertainment. I have read a fair amount of Heinlein’s latter work, but, so far, only a spotty sampling of his earlier stuff.

[mightymem]

I enjoyed this book very much when I read it and found its fast pace enjoyable. It is also a very unusal twist of the alien invasion theme. I found it less philosophical compared say with Stranger in a Strange land, but its his ideas that attracted me to his works. I enjoy reading his ideas and find it clever the ways he gets the message across while creating a interesting story.

[TTBRAHWTMG]

[quote=Razorback;825148]Thanks for the feedback TTBRAHWTMG, but not to worry. I was a Heinlein fan before seeing any of the movies.

Sorry...new here.

Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the movie as a stand-alone piece of entertainment.

For straight entertainment I enjoyed it...but its not Heinlein. They did do a pretty good job with the warrior class bug. When I reread the book I picture those things now. I so wish they did something with the jump armour though. Would be tough to pull off, but they had $9M budget and good effects available by then. Heinlein did a brilliant job making you just see those suits in your mind's eye.

Guess that is the problem trying to turn any Heinlein into a movie. He does such a good job wrapping all his ideas in quietly behind a plot that is usually good enough to stand on its own. Any movie producer would be tempted to focus only on the basic plot. Truly capturing the story's meaning and Heinlein's ideas aren't necessary for turning a profit.