Mindswap
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
A classic science fiction novel from beloved author Robert Sheckley returns to print in Mindswap.
In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal, a body that he has to vacate fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvin's earthly body, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market.
Travel from world to world with Marvin, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far from ideal bodies in awful situations, just to stay alive.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Robert Sheckley
Robert Sheckley was one of the funniest writers in the history of science fiction. He did screwball comedy, broad satire, and farce. He could also be deadly serious, but he was always entertaining and always had something pointed to say about our world using the skewed versions of reality he created in his fiction. Starting in the early 1950s, he was an amazingly prolific short story writer, with a lot of his stories appearing in Galaxy Magazine. He launched his novel-writing career with Immortality, Inc., which he followed up with a sequence of excellent books: The Status Civilization, Journey Beyond Tomorrow, and Mindswap. He continued to produce novels and short stories in abundance until his death in 2005.
Read more from Robert Sheckley
Is That What People Do?: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Robot Who Looked Like Me: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncanny Tales: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Citizen in Space: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People Trap: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Untouched by Human Hands: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divine Intervention: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notions: Unlimited: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Store of Infinity: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dimension of Miracles Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shards of Space: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Fantastic Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crompton Divided Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Game of X: A Novel of Upmanship Espionage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Immortality Inc. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pilgrimage to Earth: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Journey of Joenes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Status Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Minotaur Maze Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Options Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy & Science Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKeep Your Shape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diplomatic Immunity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Mindswap
Related ebooks
Pulp Literature Spring 2021: Issue 30 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlanet explorer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Skylark of Space Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Restless: An Aurora Rhapsody Short Story: Amaranthe Short Stories, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Queen of Air and Darkness: Volume 2 of the Short Fiction of Poul Anderson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeus Irae Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Foster, You're Dead! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Meaning of Luff and Other Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Your Next-Door Neighbor Is a Dragon: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three: The Repairman; Navy Day; Toy Shop Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEarth for Inspiration: And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World That Couldn't Be Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Divine Intervention: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scum of the Universe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecond Variety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sentinel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Song Called Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragon Space: A Star Rigger Omnibus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Street That Wasn't There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alice In Virtuality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Blade This Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPimm's Body Shop Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Science Fiction anthology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Invisible Base: Children of Time 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrek Off Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlanet of Peril Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear and Loathing in the Wasteland: The Happy Bureaucracy, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDayworld Breakup Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anomalies, a Collection of Short Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Science Fiction For You
Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is How You Lose the Time War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wool: Book One of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silo Series Collection: Wool, Shift, Dust, and Silo Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cryptonomicon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shift: Book Two of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Am Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camp Zero: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein: Original 1818 Uncensored Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sarah J. Maas: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How High We Go in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Authority: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dust: Book Three of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England: Secret Projects, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rendezvous with Rama Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower: And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perelandra: (Space Trilogy, Book Two) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Firestarter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Psalm for the Wild-Built Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Mindswap
90 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I admit that i am very fond of this book, where a talented artist drops us into a group of disparate characters and dances with them, and our minds for a dizzying whirl. He lets us go far too soon, and we are left to discover what this exercise in rapid characterizations has done to us. Well done sir! Read it if you want to be shaken around a bit by a writer at the height of his powers. It was very sixties, and should have been. It is whar science FICTION should be. Fans of the Jack Williamson, very hard sci-fi need not apply!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Laugh out loud funny by one of our funniest writers. A contemporary masterpiece of satire.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Funny is some spots and boring in others but in overall a book worth reading for enjoyment for the thought the author presented.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5timeless. Nearly 50yrs since it was written and it is a masterpiece.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A hilarious example of anti-intellectualism in science fiction. Mindswap is a satire on Voltaire's Candide, where the hero ends up in increasingly improbable situations. Like Candide, it parodies many other works and the writing might seem clunky if you're not familiar with Golden Age and 1950s science fiction.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5pretty over-the-top. I can't finish it because it was just too much. If it was toned down some, I think I would have liked it more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A bit of a hoot of a science fiction novel in which Marvin Flynn, who cannot afford an interplanetary vacation by any other means, answers an ad to Mindswap (sort of like vacation time shares, except you swap bodies instead of houses) with a Martian. After the swap is complete he finds, to his dismay, that the other party has unscrupulously contracted his body to another vacationer, who is found to have prior claim, and absconded with Marvin's body for parts unknown. Marvin has six hours to find his own body, or be dispossessed of a physical body, which of course would mean death. What follows is a sardonic tour de farce as Marvin transfers from one alien body to another in a quest for his own. I think Douglas Adams must have been inspired by Sheckley's style for his "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books, although Adams did it better.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pure fun from start to end and with a happy grinning contented ending.