The Puppet Masters

By: Robert A. Heinlein

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

First came the news that a flying saucer had landed in Iowa. Then came the announcement that the whole thing was a hoax. End of story. Case closed.

Except that two agents of the most secret intelligence agency in the US government were on the scene and disappeared without reporting in. And four more agents who were sent in also disappeared. So the head of the agency and his two top agents went in and managed to get out with their discovery: an invasion is underway by slug-like aliens who can touch a human and completely control his or her mind. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And most of Iowa is already under their control.

Sam Cavanaugh was one of the agents who discovered the truth. Unfortunately, that was just before he was taken over by one of the aliens and began working for the invaders, with no will of his own. And he has just learned that a high official in the Treasury Department is now under control of the aliens. Since the Treasury Department includes the Secret Service, which safeguards the president of the United States, control of the entire nation is near at hand.

©1951,1979 by Robert A. Heinlein, 2003 by the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust (P)2020 by Blackstone Publishing

A retro futuristic exercise in patience.

it's a very interesting book with its own idiosyncrasies.
it will most certainly not be everyone's cup of tea but it's definitely worth the listen.
I didn't know whether I would give it three stars or not until the last 15 minutes or so.
but after hearing the ending I can't give it anything less than five stars.

Still a great story.

I read this book decades ago. It is a well done alien invasion story first published in 1951. It's interesting to look at the technology described and compare it to modern technology, but you can see that Heinlein got some of it right and some of it wrong.

Bronson Pinchot does a nice job at reading the book and giving the characters differentiation.

good performance

loved the narration. not one of my favorite heinlein books. still good though.

aliens invade earth. to save the planet .... man must strip

Great book, terrible narrator

Of course it was a great book, it’s Heinlein.
The narrator however, was trash. So many characters, especially Mary, were voiced with tones too low to hear. I found myself turning the volume up full blast and rewinding the novel just to catch what was being said. Speak up, man!!

What a great book

This was an absolute pleasure to listen and I wish there was another one after.