Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (1907-1988), was born in Butler, Missouri, to a German-American family with generations of military service in it. He became one of the most celebrated and influential science fiction writers of the 20th Century. A US Naval Academy graduate with engineering training, he brought to the wild-west-type field of science fiction of the pulp era a rigorous scientific mind and a temperment to question all assumptions of the genre, of society, and of human history and of the human future.
Upon medical discharge from the Navy in 1934, he turned to several pursuits, finally ending up writing with a first short story publication in 1939. Initially, he was one of the stable of writers of the legendary editor of Astounding, John W. Campbell, Jr., but Heinlein was too independent a spirit to follow an editor — he would always rather blaze new trails. Professional and financial security came with an epic series of so-called “juveniles” written for about 10 years from the late Forties to the late Fifties. These transformed themselves into sophisticated cultural critiques from Starship Troopers (1959) and Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) onwards.
He brought the verbal gymnastics of George Bernard Shaw and the adventurous pace of Rudyard Kipling to a pulp genre struggling for self-confidence and literary legitimacy. Whatever his provocations (and there are many for his readers from all backgrounds), he raised the standard of great speculative fiction. A tip on beginning Heinlein: begin with the early novels, even the excellent juveniles, plunge into those written in the Sixties, and then tackle the big ambitious novels of his late period. Enjoy the ride!
The Puppet Masters audiobook
The Puppet Masters audiobook
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.
Unabridged, restored version of the novel, 10.1 hours on cds, reader Bronson Pinchot.