Chapter 2 Heinlein and his "Puppet Master"

Robert Heinlein, known as "the father of modern American science fiction", "an unprecedented and unprecedented excellent writer of American science fiction", and "one of the four great talents in the golden age of American science fiction", was born on July 7, 1907, and was born in 1925 Entered the Annapolis Naval Academy and served in the Navy as a non-commissioned officer on aircraft carriers and destroyers after graduation. In 1934, Heinlein retired due to illness and returned to university to study mathematics and physics, but soon dropped out due to illness.Before becoming a science fiction writer, Heinlein had many careers: as a silver miner, as a builder, and even considered politics.

In 1939, World War II plunged the U.S. economy into depression, and Heinlein, who was working as an engineer at the U.S. Naval Experiment Station in Philadelphia, was overwhelmed by debts.Just at this time, a science fiction magazine published an advertisement for a science fiction essay contest, with a prize of fifty dollars.Heinlein, who has been a fan of science fiction since he was a child, decided to fight for the fifty-dollar prize. However, when he finished writing his debut novel, he felt that it should be worth more money, so he sent it to the most famous science fiction writer at the time. Magazine Amazing Stories. The editor-in-chief of "Amazing Stories"-the famous Campbell-has a good eye for money, and immediately bought the novel for seventy dollars. It is Heinlein's short masterpiece "Life-Line".

In "Lifeline", Heinlein described human life as a "pink worm", which leads from the distant past to the future, and the present is just a section of this "worm", from which people can fully infer The beginning and end of "worms" are the past and future of human beings. Heinlein's first works showed a talent like no other.In this regard, the famous American science fiction critic James Gunn commented: "Heinlein found his career at the age of thirty-two; at the same time, Campbell found his star writer." Heinlein's early works, mainly "History of the Future" series.After his famous "Outline of Future History Series" was published in 1941, it was imitated by many science fiction writers.Based on this, he created a large number of "future history" stories, which were collected in short stories such as "The Man Who Sold the Moon" (The Man Who Sold the Moon) in the 1950s.These collections were reprinted in editions and are still bestsellers today.

After the end of World War II, Heinlein began to serialize his important work "The Green Hills of Earth" (The Green Hills of Earth) in the "History of the Future" series in the first-class American literary publication "The Saturday Evening Post". Serialization can be regarded as a historical event of American science fiction, which marks the leap of science fiction from cheap third-rate readings to high-end entertainment works. Heinlein also wrote many sci-fi stories for teenagers. Among them, the idea of ​​"Rocket Ship Galileo" (Rocket Ship Galileo, 1947) was used in the 1950 science fiction movie "Destination: Moon", which was The beginning of the prosperity of science fiction films in the 1950s.Heinlein subsequently published "The Rolling Stones" (The Rolling Stones, 1952), "Starman Jones" (1953), (The Star Beast, 1954), "Citizen of the Galaxy" (Citizen of Galaxy). , 1957) and a series of juvenile science fiction stories have won a respected position in the field of juvenile science fiction.

The 1950s and 1960s were the heyday of Heinlein's science fiction creation. He published a series of high-level novels such as The Puppet Masters, 1951 and The Dool into Summer (1957). Among them, (Double, 1956), (Starship Troopers, 1959), (stranger in a Starange Land, 1961) and (The Moon in a HarshMistress, 1966) won four Hugo Awards for Heinlein. Heinlein created more than ten collections of short science fiction stories and more than thirty novels in his life, among which seven million copies were sold in the United States alone; He was invited as the guest of honor of the World Science Fiction Convention three times; the World Science Fiction Association began to award the "Master of Science Fiction Award" from time to time in 1974, and Heinlein was the first science fiction writer to win the title of "Master".

In the afternoon of 1988, Heinlein died.In recognition of his outstanding contributions, Washington, D.C., specially awarded him the "Distinguished Citizen Medal". It is the most action-packed of Heinlein's full-length works, and it is also a masterpiece of invasion science fiction. Alien invasion sci-fi has been hugely popular since Welles' Star Wars, especially during the Cold War, when it reached staggering levels.Basically, cold war invasion science fiction was the literary reflection of ideological confrontations in the political sphere, and most of them have sunk into the dust of history—in large part because : They deviate from the fundamentals of science fiction, and tend to be short-sighted in the world.

is different.After more than half a century of years, this work is still shining brightly in the hall of science fiction literature.This kind of success does not come from the fear of Americans in the ideological field conveyed in the works, but from the shaping of typical images. The most prominent images in the film are those "slugs" from Titan.This alien is perhaps the scariest alien in science fiction.They are not the traditional reckless aliens who directly attack human beings by destroying their bodies, but sneak into human society cunningly and silently, climb up people's backs, control people's ideology, and make people willingly become their slaves.

The invasion of slugs is a transcendence of the theme of science fiction invasion.Heinlein struck at the source of people's fear.Alien beings driving gigantic killing machines aren't nearly as scary anymore as slugs. The character creation in the film is also quite successful.The old man, Sam and Mary, have distinct personalities on paper.Especially for Sam as the narrator, his inner world is fully revealed through a series of adventures. His love for the old man and Mary, and his hatred and fear of slugs are empathetic. An iconic work by Heinlein.On the one hand, the two images of the old man and Sam in the work laid the foundation for the image mode of "strict father" and "grown man" in Heinlein's full-length works; Science fiction's desire to express political ideas.For readers who love Heinlein, this work with vivid language, tense plot and thriller characteristics is obviously a must-read.From the beginning, to "The Gate of Entering Midsummer", and then, you can systematically feel the finalization and transformation of Heinlein's work style.

It was first translated and introduced to my country in the 1980s, and published in the sixth series of the first-class science fiction series "Science Fiction Ocean".But that's just an abbreviation.Despite this, it still belongs to the best science fiction novels that can be read at that time, and it has influenced a whole generation of science fiction fans.This time we publish the full translation of this sci-fi masterpiece, not only to meet the needs of the new generation of readers, but also to fulfill the wish of old readers. In fact, for those friends who have heard of, or read the abbreviated version of this masterpiece, there is no need to tremble here; A friend of science fiction said: This book will not let you down, you will have a new and strange experience because of it; and this kind of experience, you can't get it outside of science fiction.

Yao Haijun