Hilarious sci-fi book from the 70s

[rahul]

I'm looking for a book which begins with the first person narrator in the future being drafted and participating in a training session that lasts for as long as it takes all the troops to simply raise their laser guns and point at the target

After their class graduates within minutes of enrolment they are shipped off to another planet

At one point he is connected to a machine that forces truthfulness by plugging all the skin pores, preventing perspiration!

He also goes into a movie theater in which two entirely different films are showing with alternating frames from each being projected on the screen and a synchronised set of shutter glasses worn by the viewer only allows the movie s/he is interested in watching to be seen (and the headset only plays sound from that movie). A young boy sitting next to him shows him how to defeat the mechanism and make it possible to watch the alternate "adult" movie that is being simultaneously screened

This book was filled with clever innovations (which seem not too far fetched today!), and I'd love to get a hold of it, if only I knew the title/author

Someone? Anyone?

 

[Omphalos]

Its not Gernsback, but some of those innovative ideas sound like something he would have come up with in Ralph 12 4C41+

Drawing a blank on this though.

 

[iansales]

Bob Shaw? Harry Harrison? Ron Goulart?

 

[High Eight]

Bob Shaw? Harry Harrison? Ron Goulart?

Sounds like one of Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books - The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted?

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

I was thinking more along the lines of Harry Harrison's "Bill: The Galatic Hero" series as that's more 'military-minded'

Hope some of these are ringing a bell with you, Rahul.

 

[rahul]

...
Hope some of these are ringing a bell with you, Rahul.

All very good, but no cigar ... yet. Bill: The Galactic Hero is eerily close

Thanks to the suggestions I'm tracking down synopses on Google, Amazon and Wikipedia and even though I've not found it yet, my future reading list is growing

 

[jojajihisc]

Do you remember anything else specific about the setting on earth?

 

[The Ace]

I wish I could remember the author, is the main character Warren Peace ? (he wanted to sign up under the false name,'Leo Tolstoy,' but remembered the title instead of the author of the book he was carrying).

 

[iansales]

Ace, Warren Peace is the hero of Bow Shaw's Who Goes Here? and, er, Warren Peace.

 

[The Ace]

Cheers, I'll try to remember that. It was certainly a cracker.

I'll suggest it was Shaw's, 'Who goes here,' then. With any luck, we've found it.

 

[iansales]

Gah. Bob. Bob. Bob. Not Bow. You wouldn't think I could get a three-letter name wrong, but fat fingers strike when you least expect it.

 

[Ian Whates]

fat fingers strike when you least expect

Ah, yes! The literary equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition!

 

[rahul]

Gah. Bob. Bob. Bob. Not Bow. You wouldn't think I could get a three-letter name wrong, but fat fingers strike when you least expect it.

Ah, yes! The literary equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition!

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Ace, Warren Peace is the hero of Bow Shaw's Who Goes Here? and, er, Warren Peace.

Ace & Ian: Thank you so very much!