1951 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Robert A. Heinlein "The Puppet Masters" © 1951, Galaxy, Sep-Nov novel: Doubleday, 1951 --/ fourth place sf novel --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ style award There are a lot of ways to look at Heinlein's classic, The Puppet Masters: as a perfect example of what makes a 'Heinlein' book (a determined uberman, a fiery female, sparkling language, etc), an ideal cold-war parable (US vs relentless, soul-sucking invaders out to turn us into mindless slaves), or as an examination of classic paranoia (who can you trust?), but for this review let's take a look at The Puppet Masters as a book about hunting dragons. No, there are no dragons in The Puppet Masters. Set in a near future US after a limited nuclear war, the book is about a covert alien invasion -- a rarity for Heinlein -- by 'slugs:' parasitic lifeforms that control their human hosts. In this way it's a perfect companion to Jack Finney's Body Snatchers: an unearthly threat not just to our world but to our sense of identity. With Finney the aliens impersonated the people around us; with The Puppet Masters the aliens control everyone around us -- two sides of a similar coin. But while Finney approached the theme with sly terror and sneaky suspense, Heinlein puts us in the shoes of 'Sam' an operative for a so-secret-no-one-knows-about-it-but-the-president organization simply called 'The Section' -- run with an iron fist by 'The Old Man' -- that discovers and then fights against the invading parasites. This is what makes the book so interesting. Sure it has Heinlein's fun use of language, a tough-but-not-robotic hero, a flamboyant female character, and his always-interesting social commentary (some so subtle as to escape everyone but a very determined reader); absolutely it works as a Cold War analogy with its war between unique identity and faceless uniformity; and, certainly, it works as a paranoiac mind-game where you literally cannot trust anyone; but then there is the dragon. What I mean is 'dragon' in the Nietzsche sense: "The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon." Sure "Sam" is our hero but he is also a victim of his own organization's ruthlessness: he cannot remember his original face, for instance, for his so many disguises and alterations. The "Section" reads less like a 'boy's own hero' bunch of freedom fighters than it does a Kafka nightmare bureu of manipulation of everyone and everything. Sure the 'slugs' are nasty, evil, horrible creatures, but reading through the book a niggling suspicion rises that the forces that are working against them are ... well, if not as bad then are just a different flavor. This devilish gray area of what makes the book so enjoyable -- in a dark and disturbing way. Reading The Puppet Masters you come away with the unsettling feeling that Heinlein's mind-controlling 'Masters' may mean creatures from outer space, our own ruthlessly cold determination to stop them or ... well, both. Review by author M. Christian ---------------------------------------------- Murray Leinster "The Other Now" © Galaxy, Mar 1951 Twists in Time, 1960 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award A classic tale of branching-out realities, and alternate universes, affected by our choices. You would think that this is no more crazy idea than "uncertainty principle" in quantum physics, where location of anything in space is ...uncertain. How about "uncertainty principle" applied to time? Just as easy to believe. review: 07-Jul-06 (read in 1999) ---------------------------------------------------- Clifford Simak "Good-night, Mr. James" (also as "Night of the Puudly") (also as "The Duplicate Man") © Galaxy, Mar 1951 All The Traps Of Earth, 1962 Skirmish, 1977 --/ fourth place sf novella --/ wonder award --/ idea award --/ style award It is generally a horror story, about a duplicate human being created to destroy a particularly nasty alien illegally smuggled to Earth. Quite edgy and thriller-like writing. This is certainly a hit, blockbuster, Hollywood-like creation with lots of color and Simak world-building. review: 07-Jul-06 (read in 1999) ---------------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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