Mindswap Book

A wonderfully zany SF romp, which you'd be tempted to dismiss as a rip-off of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if it hadn't been written 15 years earlier. I see that some reviewers here object to Sheckley's style and dialogue, but to me it seemed clear that he was mostly parodying SF and other genre fiction - I found it very amusing.

In this book, you travel the Galaxy by swapping minds with alien beings on other planets. There are many brilliant throwaway ideas, but the clear standout is "panzaism". Sheckley defines this as as the opposite of quixotism - Don Quixote looks at a windmill, and sees a giant. Sancho Panza, on the other hand, looks at a giant, and sees a windmill. So the hero of the book may start a chapter with his mind suddenly occupying the body of a mole-like creature burrowing in pitch darkness miles under the surface of an alien planet; after a few pages, the panzaism has set in, and he just feels that he's a commuter on his way to work.

As artists are always reminding us, the world is far more bizarre, dramatic and interesting than we think. I think Sheckley found a great way here to present a real phenomenon, and once you're used to the concept of panzaism you'll notice it everywhere.