Thursday, September 27, 2012

Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds' "The Switcheroo" (short story, body snatching, humor, free)

Illustration by Bill Terry accompanying the original publication in Other Worlds Science Stories magazine of the short story The Switcheroo by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds. Picture shows a man with a gadget that lets you switch consciousness with another person's body.
Title refers to a gadget. Inventor's "pet name for it, of course. Actually it is a psychoreversamentatron." It helps you snatch bodies. You point it at yourself, think hard of someone, & flick a switch. And your consciousness moves into the body of the person you were thinking of, & his consciousness moves into the body you have. Other person need not be close to you at the time of using the gadget.

Inventor of the gadget & a press reporter privy to its secret both want to get rid of someone - inventor of his nagging wife, reporter of his unbearable boss. And then there are the desirable bodies of the state governor & of the President (both of US). Some fun the duo will have switching bodies.

Fact sheet.

First published: Other Worlds, March 1951.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Fredric Brown, Mack Reynolds.

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