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Short story where people can swap minds with others


I've read this book about 15 years ago, but I think it's older than that.


In the story people use some sort consciousness transfer technology to travel to distant solar systems. So basically an alien from planet A would want to visit Earth, and you would like to visit the planet A, by mutual agreement you'd transfer your mind into the alien's body and alien's mind would be transferred into your body.


So the main character decides to travel and swaps bodies with an alien. However, he/she isn't able to return back to his/her own body and instead is transferred to another alien's body and so on. As the story progresses the protagonist jumps from body to body until he/she slowly loses his/her own identity.


Also the story is written in a funny/light tone.


I've read this story in Russian but I am sure that it was translated. The story was a part of collection of short sci-fi stories.



Answer



It sounds very similar to Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley.



The plot you describe is almost identical, and the humorous tone is very Sheckley-esque.


The only problem is Mindswap was a 200 page book.


The synopsis:



In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and 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, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market. Travel from world to world with Marvin, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far from ideal bodies in awful situations, just to stay alive



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