Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Pan
Robert Sheckley’s science fiction novel Mindswap was first featured in the June 1965 issue of Galaxy magazine and first published in book form in 1966. Shown here is the paperback edition by Pan Books from 1974, with uncredited cover art.
The typeface is Gothic Bold, an all-caps design with horizontal contrast that originated in wood and was first shown by the Hamilton Manufacturing Co. in 1889. It arguably influenced similar designs from the 1960s and 1970s, like Beat Star, Sintex, and Zipper. Gothic Bold itself was revived for phototype, too: one such version was offered as part of the Morgan Press Collection by Headliners from around 1968.
About the book:
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.
1 Comment on “Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Pan”
The cover art is uncredited, but reminds me a little of this monster portrait by Don Ivan Punchatz for John Wyndham’s The Secret People from the year before: