Heinlein, The Master and his Puppets

ONE of the alien invasion novels to react against the trend of helplessness during the time of its serialization and later release as a book in 1951, The Puppet Masters could safely be said to have been the signal for the 1950s emergence (reemergence?) of a new kind of American patriot (self-critical to the point of being a bit uncertain about his own brilliance, a character therefore recurrently reluctant about doing the heroic, but without the author going so far as to create a Saul Bellow type of anti-hero).
     The book also has visions of a more liberal (instead of  conservative) America. In fact, every now and then, author Robert A. Heinlein (often called the "dean of science fiction writers" and one of the most influential [and controversial] authors of the genre of his time) takes a swipe at conservative types in society in some of the pages.
     Set in the year 2007, which was then the future, this classic oeuvre does miss the '07 landscape a bit---in Heinlein's vision of '07 there are yet no communication satellites. Therefore, TV broadcasts are still limited to line-of-sight propagation, and it's a limitation that plays a large part in the novel's plot and development. Heinlein's predictions for '07 not only fall short of the mark, they also overshoot. Rayguns and flying cars are already in fashion, space stations proliferate in Venus, and the author already gives us some heads up on a mission to Titan, the Saturn moon, somewhere in the middle of the narrative. (Need I mention that this book came out during the peak of flying saucer sightings?)
     The story's primary cast completes the Heinlein triumvirate: Elihu Nivens is the classic Heinlein hero and ideal American male symbol---"multi-talented, independent-minded, loyal to friends, implacable as an enemy," says the Wikipedia wiki about him. Mary (born as Allucquere to a religious commune on Venus), is Nivens' counterpart and also a classic Heinlein figure---"tall, a redhead, tough, and brilliant." Third in Heinlein's favorite types present here is the "wise, grumpy old man" simply named The Old Man, Elihu's boss and dad.
     In his "Books" column for F&SF, critic and also sci-fi author Damon Knight selected the novel as one of the 10 best SF books of the '50s decade.