The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein

First published in 1951

"Aliens take over human minds" was the plot of more than one Star Trek episode -- and of nearly every episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea -- but the concept was still fresh when Heinlein wrote The Puppet Masters. Rarely has it been employed more successfully. Heinlein was a steadfast believer in the rugged individualist's desire and ability to fight for freedom, a feeling he captured brilliantly in The Puppet Masters.

Published in 1951, during the time Heinlein was busy turning out juvenile novels, The Puppet Masters is very much an adult novel. The hero (using the cover name "Sam") openly lusts after a fellow agent, comments upon her physical attributes, considers calling an escort agency, and takes pills to wake up or to sharpen his wits or to extend his sense of time (and enjoys the high). Heinlein had some fun with the obvious way to make sure your neighbor isn't hosting an alien on his back: by presidential order, nudity becomes the required fashion. Daring stuff for 1951!

The story moves quickly, Sam's reluctantly heroic actions are plausible, and Heinlein invests Sam with a full personality -- and an opinionated one, as one expects from a Heinlein hero. The Puppet Masters has more of a thriller feel than some of Heinlein's more cerebral novels. Ignoring the fact that Russia seems less a threat now than it did six decades ago, the novel has aged well, and should retain its appeal to the modern reader.

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A Killing in Moscow by Clive Egleton

First published in 1994

Clive Egleton's second Peter Ashton novel is better than his first (Hostile Intent). Ashton is given a stronger personality (the polite British version of abrasive) and he begins to have a life outside the office. The plot is a bit less far-fetched and a bit more interesting than the story in Hostile Intent in that A Killing in Moscow explores the relationship between the KGB and organized crime in post-Soviet Russia, arguing (through Ashton) that it doesn't matter whether the people on the other side are motivated by politics or greed if their actions jeopardize national security.

The novel begins with the execution of British businessman Colin Joyner and the prostitute he was entertaining in his Moscow hotel room. Peter Ashton, not quite trusted or simply disliked by those in power at SIS as a result of his actions in Hostile Intent, has been assigned to run Security and Technical Services where his access to top secret information is limited. Ashton, in Moscow to conduct a security audit, is sent by the British Embassy to assist the local police in the investigation of Joyner's death. This straight-forward task becomes more complicated when Ashton learns that a Russian woman employed as an Embassy secretary has been spying on the British Embassy official who monitors commercial transactions, and has been passing information to the prostitute who was found dead in Joyner's room. The novel follows Ashton as he puzzles out the relationship between the spy and Joyner. As in Hostile Intent, Ashton makes it his responsibility to keep the spy alive, creating the opportunity for some fast moving action scenes.

The pace in A Killing in Moscow is intense and Egleton's prose is more fluid than it was in Hostile Intent. The combination of intellectual intrigue and well written action scenes makes this a fun reading experience, and the ending is just wild.

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Station Gehenna by Andrew Weiner

Published by Worldwide Library on November 1, 1988

Six people work at the terraforming station on Gehenna before the leisure officer exits the station without an atmosphere suit. He leaves behind a note that complains of his inability to tolerate his dreams. The Spooner Interplanetary Development Corporation sends Victor Lewin, a psychologist masquerading as a replacement leisure officer, to investigate station morale after the suicide. Lewin quickly learns that safety devices should have prevented an unprotected person from opening the airlock to Gehenna's atmosphere. There is no evidence that the devices failed. Was the leisure officer murdered? If so, who killed him and how was it done?

Trying to solve the mystery, Lewin begins to have dreams of his own. And when he takes his first trip outside the station, he thinks he sees a terrifying sight .... And then there's another death. Is a saboteur trying to destroy the terraforming project? Are the crew members sharing a delusion? Or is something out there?

Station Gehenna is a science fiction novel wrapped in a mystery and lightly flavored with a horror story. While all the elements of a traditional mystery are present -- any of several suspects might be the killer -- the story raises the possibility that something outside the station, some alien force, is responsible. Told in 48 relatively brief chapters, the plot-driven story moves along at a rapid pace. The resolution, while dependent on science fiction notions that are far from innovative, is logical and satisfying. This is quick, light reading, unexceptional but well crafted and fun.

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Sidewall by David Graham

Published by Pan in 1983

Sidewall is a surprisingly good science fiction thriller that's more thriller than science fiction. This 1982 novel is set in 1993. Most of David Graham's predictions about life in the '90's turned out to be pretty far off the mark (although he did manage to predict the Gulf War). You have to make a mental adjustment to set the novel a bit farther into the future, but after that's accomplished, the story seems quite plausible -- and in any event, it's terrifically exciting.

The British are building a sidewall -- a marine hovercraft -- that seats two thousand passengers and makes the trip from England to New York in about eight hours. Although it's being developed in secret (in cooperation with the British military), the chief executives of the world's airlines have found out about it and are determined to put a stop to it, lest they lose their transatlantic fares to competition from this new form of transportation. In addition, someone has leaked plans for the vessel to the Soviet Union (substitute Russia, since Graham failed to predict the Soviet Union's demise) which is building its own militarized version of the craft.

The main characters in Sidewall are engaging, particularly the unfortunately named Don Savage, chief of security for the company developing the sidewall, who struggles with a mysterious illness and a hellish marriage as he tries to save the company from Russian spies and airline CEO's. Action scenes are vividly written and once it begins, the action is relentless -- all the way through to the last page -- as imaginative attacks are launched against the sidewall.

David Graham's most popular novel was Down to a Sunless Sea. In addition to Sidewall, he wrote three others, two under the name Wilbur Wright. It's a shame he didn't write more, and it's a shame Sidewall is out of print. Seek out a used copy if you enjoy fast moving thrillers.

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All Judgment Fled by James White

First published in 1969

All Judgment Fled (the title is taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) is an entertaining first contact novel. An object following an unnatural path is detected in the vicinity of Mars. Two American ships, each with a crew of three, are sent to investigate. They find an alien ship. It doesn't respond to signals, doesn't seem to be doing anything; its purpose is a mystery. Behaving rather foolishly, some crew members enter the ship and, having damaged their space suits in an encounter with violent but seemingly unintelligent aliens, find themselves stranded inside the ship. Oops!

The story is a study in the psychology of first contact. Three different alien species inhabit the ship. The humans must decide which species are intelligent, which are friendly, and why they're here. The six crew members (four astronauts, two in training) are selected more for their ability to survive the trip than for their expertise. The story's primary focus is on McCullough, whose medical background makes him the unofficial expert in the psychology of both humans and aliens. He is occasionally frightened to a state of witlessness -- an understandable and realistic reaction that adds credibility to the story. The task of survival on an alien ship is complicated by the divided reactions of all the people on Earth who are listening to the radio transmissions and who criticize the crew for being unnecessarily violent or insufficiently aggressive, for engaging in too much or too little exploration of the ship, and generally for mucking things up.

A shortcoming of the novel is that the crew members jump to conclusions that seem questionable, if not unlikely, given the scant evidence to support them. Nonetheless, their conclusions advance the plot, which moves along briskly. This isn't by any means a great novel -- at times it even seems a bit silly -- but it's well written and the plot ultimately works: the conflict between the crew and the bureaucrats back on Earth is just as interesting as the conflict between the humans and aliens on the ship.

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