(Found) Looking for a book

[gringo]

I am looking for a book I read in the 70's. Subject was a guy that was in college for many years being paid for by his uncle that was frozen. He passed out drunk at a party and assimilated a crystal life form that a friend had stolen. It was a hard back with a red cover. The uncle gets thawed and the guys gets graduated from college and becomes a form of agent. One of the agents for the good guys was a cat or feline. The guy kep t hearing things that rhymed with red, fred, dead etc.

Please help. I would like to read it again.

 

[CassFrank]

This is Zelazny’s Doorways in the Sand (‘76/77).
Frozen uncle, College student, crystal entity…

From Wiki: “The will of Fred Cassidy's cryogenically frozen uncle provides him with a generous stipend to attend the university until he is awarded an academic degree… Fred goes to his apartment and finds it ransacked. He examines the apartment, but finds nothing missing. Paul Byler, Fred's geology teacher comes out of a closet. He slaps Fred around demanding the return of a replica he made of the crystalline star-stone. Byler is a world-renowned expert in crystallography and says he makes copies of the star-stone in order to sell them as novelty items. Fred states that the replica is not in the apartment and maybe his ex-roommate has it… Finding himself intoxicated Fred stays the night with Hal and hears the voice, now identifying itself as Speicus, that has been talking to him. It tells him to test the inversion program of the alien Rhennius machine and then get intoxicated. It is easier for Speicus to talk to Fred if he is drunk…Fred's future is as an alien culture expert for the U.S. legation of the United Nations and as a host for Speicus. Speicus will use Fred's nervous system as well as his broad knowledge of many subjects to gather information and process it as a kind of sociological computer.”

Doorways in the Sand - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Richiehead]

How did I miss that one ?

 

[BAYLOR]

How did I miss that one ?

You might ant ot check out The Psycho Shop which Zelazny cowrote with Alfred Bester

 

[Richiehead]

You might ant ot check out The Psycho Shop which Zelazny cowrote with Alfred Bester

I meant how did I miss the original query, not the book - which I am completely familiar with

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

One of Zelazny's best - certainly the most fun. I always loved the idea of someone at university forever, constantly changing majors so as never to complete a degree and always roughly one or two papers off the next one! A brilliant life choice if you ask me!

Cheers, Greg.

 

[KiraAnn]

I knew a fellow student at Texas A&M who took 6 years to get his bachelor's degree. Changed his major 3 times.