The Puppet Masters - Plot Introduction

Plot Introduction

This novel is Heinlein's only foray into the "alien invasion" genre within science fiction. His approach to the story is different from most preceding invasion stories. It does not present the "helpless humanity" angle typical of stories from The War of the Worlds onwards, nor does it simply dress up conventional horror themes in the trappings of science fiction. While the invaders are horrifying enough, the focus of the plot is very much the practical business of, on the one hand, the aliens mounting the invasion, and on the other, the efforts of free humans to defeat it.

The setting is the early 21st century (the first scene takes place on July 12, 2007). There had been a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the West which left both sides battered but unbroken, and following the hot war they just went back to the Cold War. The Soviet Union and China remain a single bloc dominated by Moscow, and the sharp Sino-Soviet breach of the late 1950s had not happened. Heinlein also assumes that the Russians are running China, "The Russian bureaucrats had even cleaned up China to the point where bubonic plague and typhus were endemic rather than epidemic.". There is also a casual reference to Kurdish as one of the languages which an agent "behind the curtain" finds useful indicates that the Soviets have at some time taken over some Kurdish-speaking areas.

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 rayguns and personal flying cars are commonplace. Space stations exist and colonies have been established on the planet Venus.

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 - presumably nuclear - to all by itself confront an entire world. However, communications satellites have not been thought of, and TV broadcasts are still limited to line-of-sight, as they were at the time of writing.

This has a crucial importance for the plot. A big country like the United States is divided into numerous "blocks" which receive TV 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 book was written when the wave of supposed flying saucer sightings was at its peak and getting enormous attention in the US media. The actual spaceship of the invaders is a "flying saucer'.

The term "puppet masters" of the title only occurs twice in the book itself, including the very last statement where the narrator writes: "I feel exhilarated. Puppet masters - the free men are coming to kill you! Death and Destruction!"