There and Back Again: By Max Merriwell [Hardcover]

Pat Murphy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

Bailey, an asteroid miner in the backwaters of the galactic civilization, is swept up in an adventure when he retrieves a message pod drifting in space, and notifies the Farr Clone that he has it. The Farrs are the oldest, richest clone family in the galaxy, and they made their fortune by mapping the wormholes that allow faster-than-light travel. Along with the legendary Gitana, the Farrs have discovered a piece of an ancient alien artifact that may be a map of the entire wormhole system. Bailey's message pod contains word of where the rest of the map may be.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pat Murphy, writing as her imaginary friend/alter ego Max Merriwell, presents a view of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit through the lens of space opera.

Bailey Beldon, a norbit who loves a good tale of adventure from the comfort of his asteroid belt home, unexpectedly becomes an unwilling protagonist when adventurer Gitana and a group of powerful Farr clones show up on his doorstep to retrieve a message pod he has scavenged. The message--from another Farr clone--includes a map of previously unknown wormholes and the tantalizing promise of a glorious Snark, the Farr term for alien artifacts left behind by the Old Ones.

Bailey suddenly finds himself light years from home and in the company of an oddball assortment of characters, including a 'pataphysician named Gyro Renacus, who, along with Gitana, appears in Murphy's Wild Angel, and Fluffy, a fighter pilot who is part cat. (Max Merriwell even writes Murphy in as a character.)

Assisted by his tone-deafness, his pragmatism, and a Mobius strip that can slow time to a crawl, Bailey pits himself against Resurrectionists who use the clones as spare parts, trancers who hypnotize with music, pirates, gigantic metal-eating spiders, and the Boojum--the Snark left to guard the treasures the adventurers seek.

Murphy's prose sparkles throughout. Her tone ranges from the dazzlingly descriptive (as in her portrait of the heart of the galaxy) to the crisply active to a fairy-tale tone that brings to mind the soothing voice of Maurice Evans, making There and Back Again a choice novel to cozy up with on a rainy day. --Eddy Avery

From Publishers Weekly

Purporting to be a space opera by the prolific hack "Max Merriwell," this latest and disappointing novel from top fantasist Murphy (Nadya, etc.) is a transparent translation of Tolkien's The Hobbit and Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" into SF. One day Bailey, a chubby "norbit" who lives contentedly on an asteroid, is visited by the adventuress Gitana and seven members of the Farr Clone, who are on a quest. They seek to rediscover a lost colony and a rumored treasure of the Old Ones, those ancient beings who created the wormhole system that crisscrosses the galaxy. Gitana, over the Farrs' objections, insists that Bailey is exactly the additional member the group needs to form a cohesive whole, despite his lack of obvious talents. Readers who have read The Hobbit and are familiar with the conventions of space opera can probably guess the rest of the plot. Murphy seems to be having a lot of fun with her pastiche, but it founders. Although there are some lovely bits involving Bailey and a feisty spacecraft named Fluffy (after the cat who makes up part of the craft's cybernetic AI), too often the tale reads like what it purports to be, a second-rate space opera. There aren't enough humorous moments or brilliant variations on Tolkien to make up for the recognizabilityAand thus predictabilityAof the story line. In an afterword Murphy reveals that she's working on a fantasy novel, The Wild Angel, to be published as by "Mary Maxwell," one of Max Merriwell's pseudonyms. Hopefully, Murphy as Max as Mary writes with more panache than Murphy as Max. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312866445
• ISBN-13: 978-0312866440
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,614,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loads of fun. Max Merriwell's finest!, November 18, 1999

By 

Suzdal ([e-mail]) (San Francsico, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: There and Back Again: By Max Merriwell (Hardcover)

The plot is, of course, The Hobbit In Space but the story is told in such a way that you never have the time, nor the desire, to sit back and dissect the similarities. Rather you'll find yourself half a page into a fabulous retelling of one of Bilbo's adventures when suddenly it hits you.

Murphy manages to assimilate the feel of good old-fashioned Space Operas with modern SF conventions and up-to-date science. I bought this book Sunday afternoon and finished it on Tuesday evening... it sweeps you along with norbits, wormholes, clones, pataphysicians and space pirates (!) and all-around good humoured adventure.

(As for the Max merriwell angle, I'd recommend checking out the author's website for a more coherent explanation than I could give)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fun, Well-Written Hero-Quest, November 29, 2000

By 

Kimberly Wells (Shreveport, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: There and Back Again (Paperback)

Yes, there are some Hobbit-y tendencies in this book; Murphy is quite deliberate in her homage-- BUT as one of the afterwords points out, what the story really relies on is the same thing that Tolkein did-- the heroic quest myth wherein the inexperienced novice encounters adventure, learns to test him/her self, gets helped out by wider-adepts, grows & aquires wisdom, and then, with newly gained wisdom, helps his/her community grow & change....

The book is the perfect length for a night on the couch with hot tea and an afghan over your knees-- (something the story's hero would like as much as you, gentle reader).

I really grew to like Bailey-- and his companions in adventure (especially Fluffy). If you liked The Hobbit, Star Wars, the Narnia Books, Harry Potter, The Odyssey, The Robert Jordan "Wheel of Time" Series, King Arthur's tales, or *any* other "hero myth" at all, you should also like this book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A quick, delightful read not only for Tolkien fans, December 30, 1999

By 

Susan Fahrbach "bio professor" (Winston-Salem, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: There and Back Again: By Max Merriwell (Hardcover)

My 12 year old son received this book as a Christmas gift. I picked it up on Dec. 26 and finished it two days later. My son then stayed up all night and read it in one sitting! The busy, page-turning plot pays homage to The Hobbit in all the essential details, but adds new charm and new adventures. We liked both the retelling of the classic adventure and the confidently presented details of what humans might be like as they move beyond the solar system. There was just enough biology and physics to make the plot details plausible, but the writing never bogged down, and Bailey won our hearts not just as a Bilbo-clone, but on his own merits. Readers of all ages who love The Hobbit will enjoy this book, but my son feels that reading this book first and then The Hobbit would also be a great way to approach this tale.