First published 1966. Grafton paperback, 1986, pp191, c.53,000 words.
The story starts with an interesting SF premiss (and one occasionally explored by Hollywood) that one could swap minds with someone else. Each person’s body would keep functioning as normal. It would be a cheap way to travel. So thinks Marvin Flynn, a moderately successful drone on Earth with a yen to expand his horizons, to see more than just his small routine home beat. He is an impulsive and naïve character and responds to an advert for a swap with another man, a resident of Mars.
The swap is arranged, and Marvin excitedly finds himself on Mars. Unfortunately his enjoyment is short lived as he learns that the body he was occupying was promised to someone else, and as they have prior claim, he has to vacate in short order. The logic of the story breaks down at this point: If the Martian has Marvin’s body and the other person has claim to the Martian’s, why doesn’t Marvin simply occupy the other person’s? Not in this story. It veers off in to increasingly strange by-ways, as a neo-noirish, but useless, private detective is employed to track down the criminal, and a love-interest / femme fatale keeps reoccurring.
OK, so the story gives up on logic. It then proceeds on a mad-cap sequence of increasingly bizarre episodes as Marvin flits around, possibly in bodies or possibly in dreams; who cares? The narrative is overloaded with cleverness; for example we are treated to a piece of psychoanalysis of the “mindswap” at one point, interrupting any story flow [p40]. At another point a wholly weird simile is constructed: ‘To describe Marvin’s emotion would be like trying to describe the dawn flight of the heron: both are ineffable and unspeakable.’ [p40]. The cleverness continues: ‘Suffice it to say that Marvin considered suicide, but decided against it, since it seemed entirely too superficial a gesture.’
There are some amusing passages. One is a very well-done pastiche of the bar-room brawl [p138]. Another is cod-medieval chivalry: ‘As thee wish; the choice is servant to the heart.” “I would not have you believe that,” she said softly. “No? Then surely the desire is father to the intent,” Marvin said, his face gone hard and pitiless. “And standing thus in familiar relationship, not even the wisest of men would deny that Love is inbonded to its half-sister Indifference, and Faithfulness is thrall to the cruel step-mother, Pain.” ‘ [p162]. If you have a high tolerance for this sort of surreal stuff you are likely to enjoy the book, if not, not.
Sheckley writes lucidly and occasionally very amusingly. However, any pretence at science fiction or plot logic goes out of the window very quickly here.
Wikipedia biography of Sheckley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sheckley
Wikipedia summary of the book: [One of the few of Sheckley’s novels not to get a Wikipedia summary. Hmm…]
Others’ reviews of the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196262.Mindswap?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_8
© William John Graham, October 2023