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Mind Switch
TIME SWITCH AT THE ZOO
One day Martin Naumchik, reporter for the Paris Soir, visited the Berlin zoo. He was standing outside the spacious cage housing the newly-acquired Brecht Biped, Fritz, when the world seemed to lurch...
Then he was no longer outside the cage looking in, but inside looking out. He was no longer Martin Naumchik. He was Fritz, the Biped, that strange celestial animal from a world eighteen light-years away...
At the same time Fritz, who had lived almost all his life in the Hamburg Zoo, also felt the lurching motion. And found himself standing outside the his cage in the body of Martin Naumchik, looking at the frantic Biped inside, who was beating with both hands on the glass...
One day Martin Naumchik, reporter for the Paris Soir, visited the Berlin zoo. He was standing outside the spacious cage housing the newly-acquired Brecht Biped, Fritz, when the world seemed to lurch...
Then he was no longer outside the cage looking in, but inside looking out. He was no longer Martin Naumchik. He was Fritz, the Biped, that strange celestial animal from a world eighteen light-years away...
At the same time Fritz, who had lived almost all his life in the Hamburg Zoo, also felt the lurching motion. And found himself standing outside the his cage in the body of Martin Naumchik, looking at the frantic Biped inside, who was beating with both hands on the glass...
- GenresScience Fiction
144 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1965
25 people want to read
About the author
Damon Knight
580 books99 followersDamon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "Resilience", was published in 1941. He is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", which was adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was a recipient of the Hugo Award, founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 4, 2018
This is a pretty simple story, a reporter covering a new biped alien at the zoo(the species never even gets a name, just 'the biped) gets body swapped with him, leaving the mostly intelligent alien to figure out society, and the reporter to try to prove he's human.
There's also some side bits about a time travel expiriment gone awry, that I think are meant to explain the swap, but mostly just are irrelevant.
What really interesting here is looking at it in hindsight.. the scientists at the zoo are essentially keeping breeding slaves so they can write a paper.. something that we would like to think would never be tolerated, but here the desire for basic human rights is given a wink and a nod and largely ignored.
While I'm not sure what the initial intention was, now it reads as a cautionary tale of what happens when we let people ignore those that get dismissed as 'bleeding hearts'.
Out in society, the alien follows a pretty typical track of this sort of 'stranger in a strange land' story... he does weird stuff at first, falls into criminals, and eventually joins society more or less normally.
Then there's another side light about the potenial of discovering intelligent life (even though the biped seem plenty intelligent themselves), completely covered up in a join effort with the 'Sovs'
On the world building side, it's a bit of a flop. Knight gives a a 2002 that, other than casual space travel and video phones (that still need switchboard operators to connect), isn't any different from his 1963. USSR is stil intact, and Germany seems to have replaced the US as the 'good guys', but it's not clear.
The end is definitely not what it would be if it was written today, or even a bit later, which I find really interesting.. while in alot of ways we have a long way to go to have the fair, just society some other novels show, this one gives a glimpse of just how far we've come.
There's also some side bits about a time travel expiriment gone awry, that I think are meant to explain the swap, but mostly just are irrelevant.
What really interesting here is looking at it in hindsight.. the scientists at the zoo are essentially keeping breeding slaves so they can write a paper.. something that we would like to think would never be tolerated, but here the desire for basic human rights is given a wink and a nod and largely ignored.
While I'm not sure what the initial intention was, now it reads as a cautionary tale of what happens when we let people ignore those that get dismissed as 'bleeding hearts'.
Out in society, the alien follows a pretty typical track of this sort of 'stranger in a strange land' story... he does weird stuff at first, falls into criminals, and eventually joins society more or less normally.
Then there's another side light about the potenial of discovering intelligent life (even though the biped seem plenty intelligent themselves), completely covered up in a join effort with the 'Sovs'
On the world building side, it's a bit of a flop. Knight gives a a 2002 that, other than casual space travel and video phones (that still need switchboard operators to connect), isn't any different from his 1963. USSR is stil intact, and Germany seems to have replaced the US as the 'good guys', but it's not clear.
The end is definitely not what it would be if it was written today, or even a bit later, which I find really interesting.. while in alot of ways we have a long way to go to have the fair, just society some other novels show, this one gives a glimpse of just how far we've come.
February 5, 2016
“Mind Switch” is the first novel I’ve read by Damon Knight, for whom the Grandmaster Award was named. Previously, I read a collection of his short stories which I really enjoyed. So when I found this used paperback at the SF convention last November, I had to get it. And it did not disappoint. It’s about a journalist and a zoo-kept alien biped whose minds switch bodies. It’s sort of “Freaky Friday” set in the near future with no teens. It was well written, fast-paced, and exciting.
Come visit my blog for the full review…
http://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspot...
Come visit my blog for the full review…
http://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspot...
April 23, 2018
Dr. Klementi brought a few of his colleagues in to witness an experiment where he releases energy, there is no boom, no increase in temperature, just a partial vacuum. He has sent time waves propagating from the experiment site. No further mention of Klementi, just a couple of otherwise unexplainable events. We focus on the event of the mind of journalist Martin Naumchik being put into Fritz, a biped from Brecht's planet, and vice versa. Then we follow the struggles of these two individuals.
The bipeds can speak. When Naumchik tells the zookeepers he's Martin Naumchik. They shrug it off. They have one male and one female biped and they can't have anything interfering with them being the first zoo to have bipeds breed in captivity. Meanwhile Fritz, the young man, is hiding out in the abandoned top floor of a shopping mall. There is no clamor that the bipeds are sentient beings and should be treated as such. Only near the end of the story when Emma complains about being treated like an animal do we hear a mention of that subject.
One plot device that I disrespect is an antidote. Our hero is poisoned, one sip of the antidote she's back on her feet like nothing happened. I can at least respect this story in that regard. There are a lot of other far fetched ideas. Some neat ideas like the single item vending machines in the mall and methods of transportation. In this future with interstellar space travel they are still using manual typewriters. Hindsight is great.
I wouldn't classify this as great literature, for instance if it were written now it would have to address the bipeds being sentient and not zoo animals, but it wasn't awful. I really wanted to find out what was going to happen to Naumchik and Fritz and read the whole thing in one sitting. It was easy to read and entertaining.
The bipeds can speak. When Naumchik tells the zookeepers he's Martin Naumchik. They shrug it off. They have one male and one female biped and they can't have anything interfering with them being the first zoo to have bipeds breed in captivity. Meanwhile Fritz, the young man, is hiding out in the abandoned top floor of a shopping mall. There is no clamor that the bipeds are sentient beings and should be treated as such. Only near the end of the story when Emma complains about being treated like an animal do we hear a mention of that subject.
One plot device that I disrespect is an antidote. Our hero is poisoned, one sip of the antidote she's back on her feet like nothing happened. I can at least respect this story in that regard. There are a lot of other far fetched ideas. Some neat ideas like the single item vending machines in the mall and methods of transportation. In this future with interstellar space travel they are still using manual typewriters. Hindsight is great.
I wouldn't classify this as great literature, for instance if it were written now it would have to address the bipeds being sentient and not zoo animals, but it wasn't awful. I really wanted to find out what was going to happen to Naumchik and Fritz and read the whole thing in one sitting. It was easy to read and entertaining.
August 22, 2018
Classic sci-fi where an experiment gone wrong results in a bunch of weird things happening, primarily a mind switch between an enterprising journalist and a sentient alien kept in an Earth zoo.
The book does a very good job of telling a suspenseful story while painting The World Of Tomorrow in a brisk 144 pages. I mean, wow, we're sloths today with our 300-400 page books, by comparison.
We get likable characters who change as a result of being in completely different bodies, in a way that challenges notions of identity and even spirituality. It was probably edgier back then than now, but it doesn't rely on that so it holds up.
The book does a very good job of telling a suspenseful story while painting The World Of Tomorrow in a brisk 144 pages. I mean, wow, we're sloths today with our 300-400 page books, by comparison.
We get likable characters who change as a result of being in completely different bodies, in a way that challenges notions of identity and even spirituality. It was probably edgier back then than now, but it doesn't rely on that so it holds up.
October 4, 2020
I didn’t finish this book. It’s terrible.
October 24, 2025
Its 1999 and a new alien has been put on exhibit at the Berlin Zoo. It has three fingers, stands on two legs and looks something like a cross between a chicken & a cat. We’re not told much else about this bipedal alien, except that it comes from planet Brecht. The alien is given the name Fritz and gets put into a cell with another alien that is presumed to be a female version of the same species. The hope is they'll eventually mate.
When a reporter named Martin Naumchik comes to the zoo to take a photo of Fritz, something very strange occurs - he switches minds with the alien. Now Fritz is free to explore the city of Berlin from inside the body of Martin Naumchik whose mind sits trapped in the zoo. There’s also a side story involving a cigar chomping scientist named Dr. Gluck whose failed experiments in time-travel suggest some kind of vague explanation for their mind-switch.
I also read the original version from 1963 which I found to be a little more enjoyable only because it was much shorter. I mean, this is a story with a promising setup and it might have made for a memorable novel if only the author wrote characters who were slightly interesting. Case in point, we get an alien sex scene at the end of the book that’s merely one sentence long. I think that’s a missed opportunity for any writer. Parts of the plot reminded me of Theodore Sturgeon’s unforgettable novel The Rape of Medusa (1958), where a molecule-sized alien falls to earth and hijacks the brain of a deadbeat bum, bestowing him with universal consciousness. Both books share a common theme: you can’t fix stupid.
When a reporter named Martin Naumchik comes to the zoo to take a photo of Fritz, something very strange occurs - he switches minds with the alien. Now Fritz is free to explore the city of Berlin from inside the body of Martin Naumchik whose mind sits trapped in the zoo. There’s also a side story involving a cigar chomping scientist named Dr. Gluck whose failed experiments in time-travel suggest some kind of vague explanation for their mind-switch.
I also read the original version from 1963 which I found to be a little more enjoyable only because it was much shorter. I mean, this is a story with a promising setup and it might have made for a memorable novel if only the author wrote characters who were slightly interesting. Case in point, we get an alien sex scene at the end of the book that’s merely one sentence long. I think that’s a missed opportunity for any writer. Parts of the plot reminded me of Theodore Sturgeon’s unforgettable novel The Rape of Medusa (1958), where a molecule-sized alien falls to earth and hijacks the brain of a deadbeat bum, bestowing him with universal consciousness. Both books share a common theme: you can’t fix stupid.
December 5, 2014
1980 grade B
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May 2, 2019I have the german edition: Zweibeiner sehen dich an
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews