Mindswap

Review Mr. Sheckley -- as might be expected of a writer who can wring praise from as diverse a group of peers as Kingsley Amis, Harlan Ellison, John le Carre, and J. G. Ballard -- has an engagingly madcap manner all his own. --Wall Street JournalSheckley has long been considered one of the genre's leading humorists. --New York Times Book ReviewAlways he crackles with ideas. --Kingsley Amis Witty and ingenious. . . A draught of pure Voltaire and tonic. --J. G. Ballard Product Description Interstellar travel to alien worlds is too expensive for Marvin, a college student in need of a good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford: Mindswap, in which his consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien life-form. Unfortunately, Marvin 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. Now Marvin has to find a body on the black market just to stay alive! Travel with Marvin from world to world, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far-from-ideal bodies in awful situations. About the Author ROBERT SHECKLEY (1928-2005) was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous, quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical. In 2001, he was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. From AudioFile There's nothing so joyous in science fiction as a Golden Age chestnut, and MINDSWAP delivers with gusto. Narrator Tom Weiner shares that gusto as he portrays alien dialects, futuristic slang, and interplanetary adventure. Weiner evokes the B-movie aesthetic so strongly that one expects to hear cheesy beeps, radar pings, and theremin music. Satire is the name of the game, and satire is always best served straight up. Recognizing this, Weiner modulates his tone to one of earnest sincerity. Winking sarcasm would destroy the tone, so even when a Martian speaks with the broadest Cockney accent in history, Weiner's delivery is perfectly apropos. Listening to this audiobook is just plain fun. A.Z.W. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine