Customer Reviews

Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson: The Complete Stories

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This is a funny book in a fan fiction sort of vein. The author takes his main character, Maureen Birnbaum, a Jewish American Princess from a New England finishing school whose values are fashion and marrying well, and sets her in classic sci-fi settings of authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Isaac Asimov, and H. P. Lovecraft.

Each story is introduced by Maureen's whiny friend, Bitsy Spiegelman, who she visits between adventures to relate her latest tale. Sword-wielding Maureen, in her jewel-encrusted golden bra and g-string is a stereotypical, yet strong and distinct character who provides a refreshing gender-reversal to these traditionally male-oriented tales.

The first story begins when Maureen accidentally transports herself from a ski slope in Vermont to the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs. She arrives there naked and saves a prince from "big giant things with four arms" by killing them with a sword dropped by one of his fallen warriors. She keeps the sword and he gives her the gold bra and g-string worn by his slain sister. However, even though she has fallen in love with the prince, she can't live with only one outfit on a planet without stores, so she bids him a tearful goodbye and returns to Earth to go on a shopping trip with Bitsy.

Her shopping skills are impecable and she runs up quite a bill on Bitsy's Mum's credit card. She sets off for Mars, but, not knowing how this transporting actually works, ends up in another Edgar Rice Burroughs setting, The Center Of The Earth where the sub-human inhabitants force her to be their High Priestess. She doesn't like the way they treat her and wants to get back to her Martian prince so she once again goes back to Bitsy.

Stories follow where she keeps missing Mars and ends up in various sci-fi settings. The next is Robert Adams, post-nuclear war Earth of the Horseclans series. This is followed by the planet in Isaac Asimov's Nightfall. She then takes on Robin Hood and has a shopping contest with Maid Marian in a Contemporary British mall named Sherwood Forest. The last three stories find her, still missing her Martian goal, searching for the Holy Grail, caught up in Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, and taking a trip to a NASA lunar colony.

It is never explained how Muffy transports herself, but the stories are written for fun rather than realism. The saving grace of the stories are their humor and the character development of Muffy and Bitsy. While Bitsy pursues the traditional middle class dream of a successful marriage, kids, and a house in the suburbs, Muffy's adventures bring out a strong feminist philosophy in her. Her description of the Holy Grail as the sacred cauldron of the triple goddess throws the Medieval monks into quite a tizzy. By the end of the series, Bitsy's marriage has gone bad and Maureen has begun to realize that she may never get back to her prince.

This anthology contains the eight Muffy Birnbaum stories that Effinger wrote between 1982 and 1993. I don't know if Effinger wrote any more stories in this series before he died in 2002. While it might seem that only experienced sci-fi readers knowledgable in the sub-genres of the parodied authors would enjoy these stories, they actually have quite broad appeal. These sci-fi settings have become such a part of pop culture, that all readers will enjoy the tales even if they miss some of the deeper references to the classic series.

this book combines humor and science fiction in a way i have never read. a valley girl travels the universe and between her exploits she returns to earth to visit a friend and tells her of the places she's been and and things she's done. this is one of my favorite books---if you can find it--buy it. my friends that have borrowed it often refuse to give it up.

This was a very funny spoof of fantasy and horror, with nods to Burroughs, Lovecraft, and just about everything else. Maureen Birnbaum would make a great film series or TV show. Be sure to catch the new Muffy story in the collection "Chicks in Chainmail."

In Maureen (Don't call her Muffy!) Birnbaum George Alec Effinger created an archetype of parody fantasy and science fiction: the preppy barbarian; unfortunately he then faced the challenge to all authors of one-off parodies that are so successful more is demanded:

how to repeat yourself without repeating yourself. Mr. Effinger was only partially successful in avoiding a rut. If you've read one Maureen Birnbaum story, you haven't read them all, but you have read most of them.

Mike Resnick contributes a marvelous introduction, "A Few Words from Muffy Birnbaum's Most Passionate Admirer", which explains pretty well how the Maureen Birnbaum stories came to be and how he fell in love with the character and the concept.

"Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson" gives us as close as we are ever likely to get to an origin for Muffy as she arrives unexplainably on ERB's Barsoom, saves the day, falls in love, but decides she cannot live with only one outfit and returns to Earth, a decision she will regret as she spends the rest of the series trying to get back to Mars.

"Maureen Birnbaum at the Earth's Core" sees Muffy trying for Barsoom and finding ERB's Pellucidar instead. Captured by apemen and forced to be their high priestess, she refuses to kill the first normal human she's seen, who just happens to be a boy genius from NY with a super scientific digging machine. Boy Genius has potential, but Muffy walks out on him when he proves immune to her charms.

Friend and Muffy fan Robert Adams kept begging George to do unto his Horseclans universe what he had done unto ERB's; "Maureen Birnbaum on the Art of War" is the result. Though it would take a true Horseclans fan, which I am not, to get all of the jokes, this Muffy story IMHO is better than the first two.

In "Maureen Birnbaum After Dark" Muffy completely trashes Isacc Asimov's classic "Nightfall" to good effect.

"Maureen Birnbaum Goes Shopynge" is a pleasant surprise for being something completely different; instead of the usual hack and slash, Muffy challenges Maid Marian formerly of Sherwood Forest fame, now of Sherwood Forest Mall fame to a shopping duel. One of the best.

"Maureen Birnbaum and the Saint Graal" has Muffy facing three Tests in her Queste for the Saint Nappie, the Berry Bowl used by Jesus at the Last Supper, a tale partially undone by its very premise. George has Muffy exchanging feminist rebuttals with her accompanying monks' version of the Grail Legend; the trouble is that it is very difficult to make humorless feminism funny, and George doesn't entirely succeed.

"Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness" is arguably the best; Muffy reunites with the Boy Genius she met in Pellucidar to send up H. P. Lovecraft in a pitch perfect parody.

On the other hand "Maureen Birnbaum's Lunar Adventure" is arguably the worst. George admits to having forgotten about it entirely until he started putting together this collection, and after reading it, you will see why. Muffy uncharacteristically is portrayed as an absolute dunce in order to set up the punch line of this story.

The problem is that these stories were never written to be read one after the other, and they suffer a bit when you do so. While Bitsy Spiegelman, Muffy's longsuffering former friend and unwilling amanuensis, goes through quite a story arc, Muffy remains essentially unchanged throughout. No doubt this is part of the joke, but that doesn't prevent it from becoming a little tiresome and repetitive. Best to avoid this by reading them one at a time when in need of a laugh. Peggy Ranson's illustrations are an absolute delight, perfect for the stories, but there are only three of them plus the cover; they should have commissioned at least one per story.

Finally there are at least two other Muffy stories written after this book was put together and thus not included: "Maureen Birnbaum in the MUD" is available only in Chicks in Chainmail and "Maureen Birnbaum Pokes an Eye Out" is available only in Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear. Now that George Alec Effinger's untimely death has sadly put an end to this series, it is long past time for a reissue of this book with the uncollected stories and more Peggy Ranson illustrations. I for one will buy it and read it,...

just not all at once.