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| NEL paperback, ninth impression, 1986. Cover artist uncredited. |
"A man's mind transplanted into a woman's body. That is the incredible idea behind one of heinlen's most inspired novels to date. Mind versus body. Masculine desires versus feminine appeal. And soul versus soul, for the woman's soul remains locked in her body.
Eunice Branca was Johann Smith's personal secretary and confidante before she died. So when they meet again in this new and extraordinary combination their relationship is quick to blossom. Eunice proves a perfect mentor in the art of womanhood. Two people in one body. And when a third soul joins them the situation becomes even more fantastic."
I had to put this book down twice before I finished it. Understandably, it was one of Heinlein's least well received novels, as he was very ill at the time. There are good sequences though: a surreal description of brain activity in the disembodied mind of Johann Smith during its transplant into the body of the deceased Eunice Branca comes to mind but for the most part the novel busies itself with describing ridiculous future fashions, for instance, women foregoing clothes and wearing spray-on artwork, and Miss Joan Smith's new-found quest: to flirt and copulate with every other living thing in the book. Do you remember me as an ancient old man? Well, now I'm a sexy young lady! How's about it? (2/5)
