Mindswap by Robert Sheckley
Mindswap is a science fiction narrative set in a future Earth where interplanetary body exchanges are possible through a process known as "mindswapping." The story follows Marvin Flynn, who exchanges bodies with a Martian named Ze Kraggash for a month, only to find himself in a precarious situation when Ze Kraggash disappears with Marvin's body. As Marvin navigates this new reality, he encounters a series of bizarre and often dangerous circumstances, including a failed detective named Urdorf and the complexities of survival on different planets.
Throughout his journey, Marvin undergoes multiple mindswaps, including into the body of a four-legged Melden and later a being named Marduk, each presenting unique challenges and metaphysical experiences. The narrative explores themes of identity and connection as Marvin confronts dangers, forms relationships, and ultimately seeks to reclaim his original body. His adventures culminate in a confrontation with Ze Kraggash in a distorted realm known as the Twisted World. The story reflects on the interplay between body and mind, illustrating the transformative and often chaotic nature of existence in a universe where consciousness can be exchanged and redefined.
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Subject Terms
Mindswap
First published: 1966
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—New Wave
Time of work: An unspecified time in the future
Locale: Stanhope, New York; Mars; and other worlds
The Plot
Bored with life on a future Earth, Marvin Flynn agrees to engage in a “mindswap,” exchanging bodies for a month with a Martian named Ze Kraggash. After Marvin signs a number of bureaucratic forms at the body brokerage, warning of such dangers as metaphoric deformation and the Twisted World, his mind is translated into the body of Ze Kraggash. He is, however, met by an old Martian body occupied by the mind of a being from another planet who had in good faith conducted an earlier mindswap with Ze Kraggash. In the meantime, Ze Kraggash has disappeared with Marvin’s body. Marvin will be required to surrender the Martian body in six hours, and his mind, with no body to inhabit, will die.
Marvin consults a Martian detective named Urdorf, who turns out to have failed to solve his last 158 cases. In desperation, Marvin accepts another mindswap, into the body of a four-legged, four-armed Melden collecting Ganzer eggs (a valuable export) on the planet Melde II. He soon finds a Ganzer egg, but it speaks to him, pleading not to be collected. As he agrees not to collect the egg, a full-grown Ganzer comes to bite his head off. They discuss the matter and learn that the Ganzers live on, and export, the Meldens, just as the Meldens do the Ganzers. This particular Ganzer, in fact, turns out to be another earthling mindswapper.
The two of them seek out a hermit who has an illegal mindsender, and he translates Marvin’s mind into the body of Marduk of the planet Celsus V, who has been given (and thus is forced by custom to wear) a snout ring that is ticking and probably will explode within two weeks. Marduk has locked the ring in place and transferred out of the body until the danger passes.
On Celsus V, Marvin undergoes metaphoric deformation, avoiding sensory overload by interpreting the world of Celsus V as if it were the Old West. This is explained to him by a parasitic Cthulu beetle he perceives as an old saddlebum. He saves a young woman from suicide. They speak to each other briefly, in song lyrics, and he falls in love with her, but she disappears. He then meets an admittedly stereotypical Latin American named Juan Valdez. Juan teaches him the Theory of Searches, according to which the optimal method of searching for someone who is trying to be found is to wait in one place; the person being searched for will find the searcher if the searcher stays put, but the two may miss each other if they each move around while searching. Eventually Marvin’s lost love finds him, and they have some happiness together before she departs again.
Marvin’s metaphoric deformation then puts him in a swashbuckling medieval romance. There he wins swordfights and encounters his beloved in another guise. Eventually he is brought into a final confrontation with Ze Kraggash (still in Marvin’s body) and Detective Urdorf. It appears that Urdorf has captured Kraggash and thus finally concluded a case successfully, but Kraggash escapes into the Twisted World, an area of logical deformation. Marvin pursues him. They battle there, and Marvin apparently wins. He returns to his own body and to what he is sure is his own familiar Earth, where the oak trees migrate every year and there are two suns and three moons.