Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordperson Read online

  Maureen Birnbaum

  Barbarian

  Swordsperson

  by

  George

  Alec

  Effinger

  This book is in memory of Mimi,

  who looked forward to reading the last story.

  MAUREEN BIRNBAUM,

  BARBARIAN SWORDSPERSON

  Copyright @ 1993 by George Alec Effinger.

  Introduction Copyright @ 1993 by Mike Resnick.

  Illustrations Copyright @ 1993 by Peggy Ranson.

  "Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, '82. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum at the Earth's Core" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, '86. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum on the Art of War" was first published in Friends of the Horseclans, edited by Robert Adams, @ 1987. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum After Dark" was first published in Foundations Friends, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg, @ 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum Goes Shopynge" was first published in The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg, @ 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness" was written especially for this volume. First published in Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson: The Complete Adventures, June 1993. Copyright @ 1993, by George Alec Effinger. Printed by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum's Lunar Adventure," is revised from an earlier version, and is printed by permission of the author. Copyright @ 1993, by George Alec Effinger.

  "Maureen Birnbaum on a Hot Tin Roof" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, '96. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum in the MUD" was first published in Chicks in Chainmail, edited by Esther Friesner, @ 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Maureen Birnbaum in the Mud" was first published in Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear, edited by Jody Lynn Nye, @ 1996. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  ISBN 1-56865-101-5

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Maureen Birnbaum,

  Barbarian

  Swordsperson

  CONTENTS

  A Few Words from Muffy Birnbaum's Most Passionate Admirer

  by Mike Resnick

  Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson

  by Bitsy Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum at the Earth's Core

  by Bitsy Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum on the Art of War

  by Betsy Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum After Dark

  by Betsy Spiegelman Fein, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum Goes Shopynge

  by Elizabeth Spiegelman-Fein, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum and the Saint Graal

  by Elizabeth Spiegelman-Fein, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness

  by Elizabeth Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum's Lunar Adventure

  by Elizabeth Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum on a Hot Tin Roof

  by E. Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum in the MUD

  by E. J. Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  Maureen Birnbaum Pokes an Eye Out

  by E. Taylor. Spiegelman, as told to George Alec Effinger

  A Few Words

  from

  Muffy Birnbaum's

  Most Passionate

  Admirer

  by Mike Resnick

  The first time I encountered Maureen Birnbaum was in 1985, at an obscure little convention in New Orleans known as Deltacon. There were only three professional writers in attendance: I was the Guest of Honor, flown in from Ohio, and George Alec Effinger and Jo Clayton, who has since migrated to Oregon, were the local writers.

  We had each been asked to read from our works, but this was not the utmost in literary conventions, and people from the committee kept coming up to us to ask if we would postpone the readings for another hour or so while they re-ran yet another episode of Blake's 7. As I recall, somewhere around ten at night, we got tired of waiting, found a small room in the hotel, and each of us read to the other two.

  Jo read something serious and moving. I quite forget what I read. And then George began reading "Maureen Birnbaum at the Earth's Core," and for the first time in my life I quite literally fell out of my chair laughing. It was not only hilarious in its own right; it was not only brilliant as a parody of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar stories; but it also created an entirely new type of humor—Preppy Science Fiction.

  How long had this been going on, I wanted to know. George replied that this was the second story, the first having been "Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson," which he had not brought with him. Only the fact that I was staying in New Orleans a few extra days and would be able to borrow a copy later in the week prevented me from renting a car and driving to George's apartment that night to read it—and from that day to this, I have been Muffy Birnbaum's Number One Fan.

  I even had something to do, that week, with the publication of the book you are holding in your hands. I convinced George that Muffy's future adventures should average 10,000 words apiece, rather than the paltry 4,000 of her first adventure. It was entirely selfish; I couldn't bear to wait until the turn of the century for enough Birnbaum wordage to exist for someone to think of collecting the stories in book form.

  Then I settled back—impatiently—to await more Muffy stories. Having done pretty much all she could to destroy a pair of old Edgar's paradises, she next appeared in the world of Bob Adams' Horseclans. Then, to prove she wasn't limited to multi-volume adventure worlds, she turned up in the world of Isaac Asimov's

  By this time, most of the practicing science fiction writers were practically begging George to send Muffy to their worlds next, but George fooled them all by sending her to Sherwood Forest instead. (In fact, that was the Resnick Family's second contribution to Muffy's mythos. George and I were collaborating with Jack Chalker on The Red Tape War at the time, and George remarked to me over the phone that his deadline on sending Muffy into Robin Hood's world was drawing close and he still hadn't come up with an idea; Carol overheard my end of the conversation and suggested a shop-off between Muffy and Maid Marian. George clutched at the straw and within a few days had turned it into pure gold.)

  Since then she has also gone after the Holy Grail, entered Lovecraft's world of Looming Awfulness, and out-Feghooted the redoubtable Ferdinand—and while that brings Volume One to a close, there are too many Muffy Birnbaum fans out there (to say nothing of the ravening hordes of Bitsy Spiegelman aficionados) to allow George to stop bringing these tales to a waiting world. For one thing, Muffy has yet to visit Kirinyaga, so you know I won't let him quit.

  George has written these stories with such facility that I have a feeling most people don't begin to realize the work that goes into them. I know, for example, that he spent more than a month immersing himself in Horseclans books before writing the first word of "Maureen Birnbaum on the Art of War," and that is typical of the research that goes into these little gems.

  Most people don't realize, either, just what an accomplishment selling them was. Humor is a very subjective thing, p
robably the hardest fictional commodity to sell. I take an enormous pride in the fact that I have placed all 33 of Lucifer Jones's adventures, exploits and encounters with Pulpho use Magazine—but they all sold to the same editor, who happened to be a diehard Lucifer fan. George, on the other hand, after selling the first two Muffy stories to Ed Ferman of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, had to please a different editor every single time out of the box; you really don't know how difficult that is with humor until you've tried it. (In fact, a case can be made that the one thing Ed Ferman, Isaac Asimov, Bob Adams, Richard Gilliam, Ed Kramer and Martin H. Greenberg have in common is that they all fell hopelessly in love with Muffy.)

  George has accomplished a hell of a lot in his career. The Marid novels—When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss—are quite possibly the most important series to come out of science fiction in the last couple of decades. Sandor Courane, the science fiction writer/editor who has died in at least a dozen stories and keeps coming back in the sequels, is unique in the history of the genre. George is also the absolute master of the science fiction sports story.

  But I'll tell you something: the Birnbaum stories are written with such wit, such style, such pure love for the field, that I, for one, won't be surprised if Muffy outlives all of George's other creations.

  And when Volume Two comes out in a few years, I'll be right back here to smugly remind you that I was right.

  * * *

  I'm often asked where the character of Maureen Birnbaum came from. The glib reply is that I was sitting in a college hangout called Fat Harry's one afternoon. I was working over a few pages I'd written that day, and enjoying a good cheeseburger, fries, and large Coke (Nature's perfect meal). At a table near me were four Tulane co-eds who were talking just loud enough for me to catch every word. To make a dull but true story short, each of them was an ideal model for Muffy. The conversation ran the entire emotional gamut from sweaters to—God forbid—Peter Pan collars. And they spoke in frequent italics. You could just hear them chiming.

  All I've done is to take one of those college girls, put a broadsword in her hands, and maroon her in the familiar milieus of some of my favorite SF authors. At last the fantasy and science fiction field has a heroine who can truly shop her way out of a paper bag. I am quietly humble about this achievement.

  This first story takes Muffy to a place Very Much Like the planet B*RS**M, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

  * * *

  Maureen Birnbaum,

  Barbarian Swordsperson

  by Bitsy Spiegelman

  (as told to George Alec Effinger)

  THE LAST TIME I saw Muffy Birnbaum was, let me see, last December—no, make that last January, because it was right after exams and before Mums and I spent a couple of dreadful weeks at the B and T in Palm Beach. So that makes it ten months almost, and she told me to wait a year before I revealed this to the world, to use her exact words. But I don't think Muffy will mind that I'm two months early. She's long ago and far away, if you believe her story. Do I believe her story? Look. She was missing for a full week, and then I get this telegram—a telegram, can you believe it? Not a phone call. Meet me under the Clock, 15 January, noonish. Come alone. Trust me. Kisses, Muffy. What was I supposed to think? I show up and she's not there, but there's a note waiting for me: Come to Room 1623. Just too mysterious, but up I go. The door's open and I walk in, and there's goddamn Maureen Danielle Birnbaum practically naked, wearing nothing but these leather straps across her shoulders and a little gold G-string, and she's got this goddamned sword in one hand like she was expecting the Sheriff of Nottingham or something to come through the door instead of her best friend and roommate. I couldn't think of anything to say at first, so she called down for some ice, pointed to a chair, and began to tell me this story. I'll give it to you just the way it is on my tape; then you can tell me if you believe it.

  * * * * *

  SO LISTEN, I'm telling you this story. Believe me, I'd had it, absolutely had it. School was a complete bore and I was absolutely falling to pieces. Absolutely. I needed a vacation and I told Daddy that a little skiing action would shape me up very nicely, and so just like that, I found myself at Mad River Glen, looking very neat, I thought, until I saw some of the competition, the collegiate talent. They were deadly cut and they knew it, and all you had to do was ask and they'd tell you all about it. You could just about tell where they went to school, like they were wearing uniforms. The Vassar girls were the ones sort of flouncing downhill wearing their circle pins on the front of their hundred-dollar goose-down ski parkas. The Bennington girls were the ones looking rugged and trying to ski back uphill. Definitely Not Our Kind, sweetie.

  Are those your cigarettes, Bitsy? Mind if I—no, just toss me the whole pack. I have matches here in the ashtray. My God. I haven't had a cigarette in so long—

  Where was I? Vermont, right. So I was staring down this goddamn hill, if you can believe it, and I'm all set to push off and go barreling down the mountain at some outrageous speed, when I stop. I look up at the sky—it's starting to get dark, you know, and absolutely clear and kind of sweet, but cold—when I feel this weird feeling inside. First I thought I was going to die, just absolutely die. Then I thought, "My God, I know what it is. And they always say nothing can happen if—" You know. But I was wrong both times. The next thing I knew I was standing stark naked in the snow beside my body, which was still dressed in this cute outfit from L. L. Bean, and I thought, "Muffy, you've had it." I thought I was dead or something, but I didn't understand why I was so goddamn cold. Then I looked up into the sky and this bright red dot caught my eye and I sort of shivered. I knew right then, I said to myself, "That is where I'm going." Heaven or Hell, here I come. And just like that I felt this whooshing and dizziness and everything, and I opened my eyes, and I wasn't in Vermont anymore, but I was still cold.

  I'm drinking Bloody Marys. It isn't too early for you, is it? Then you try calling down for ice, I've given up on them. Are you hungry? We'll have lunch later. I'm putting myself on a diet, but I'll go with you and you can have something.

  Anyway, they didn't prepare me at the Greenberg School for what was waiting for me when I opened my eyes. Here I was on some weirdo planet out in space, for God's sake. Say, Bitsy, do you have any gum or what? Chiclets? Yuck. Let me have—no, just one. Thanks. A weirdo planet, if you can believe that. I was standing there at the top of the run one second, having this unbelievable fight with the zipper on the jacket Pammy—that's Daddy's second wife—bought me for Christmas, and the next minute I'm up to my ankles in orange grunge. And I was so cold I thought I would freeze to death. I was cold because—we're just going to have to live without the ice, I think, Bitsy, because this hotel probably has a goddamn policy against it or something, so just pour it in the glass—I was standing there in the proverbial buff! Me! Three years living with me at the Greenberg School, and even you never saw my pink little derriere. And here I am starko for the whole world to see. What world it was I didn't know, so I didn't know who could see, but believe me, Bitsy, I didn't particularly care. Right then I had two or three pressing problems on my mind, and getting dressed was high on the list. I really missed that ski outfit. It was cold as hell.

  All around me there was nothing but this gross orange stuff on the ground. I don't know what it was. It wasn't grass, I know that. It felt more like the kind of sponge the cleaning woman keeps under your sink for a couple of years. Gross. And there was nothing else to see except some low hills off in one direction. I decided to head that way. There sure wasn't anything the other way, and—who knew?—there may have been a Bloomingdale's on the other side of the hills. At that point I would have settled for Lamston's, believe me.

  You're going to die laughing when I tell you this, absolutely die. When I took a step I went sailing up into the air. Just like a balloon, and I thought, "Muffy, honey, what did they put in your beer?" When I settled back down, I tried it again, and I flew away again. It took me absolu
tely an hour to figure out how to walk and run and all that. I still don't know why it was. One of those lame boys from Brush-Bennett would know, right off the bat, but it wasn't all that important to me. I just needed to learn to handle it. So in a while, still freezing my completely cute buns off, I got to the top of the first hill and I looked down at my new world.

  You want to know what I saw? Was that the door? You better get it, Bitsy, because even though Daddy stays here all the time, the staff has been just too dreary for words. You should have heard what they said about my sword. They talked about my sword a lot, because they were too embarrassed to mention my costume. I think it's—who? The ice? Would you be a dear and leave the boy something? I don't have a goddamned penny. I mean, you don't see any pockets, do you?

  There was more orange crud all the way to the whatyoucall—the horizon. But there was a little crowd of people down there about a quarter of a mile away. It looked to me like a little tailgate party, like we used to have with your parents in New Haven before the Harvard game. I thought, "That's nice, they'll be able to drive me to a decent motel or something until I can get settled." But then I wondered how I was going to walk up to them all naked and glowing with health and frostbite and all. I thought about covering up the more strategic areas with the orange stuff from the ground, but I didn't even know if I could rip it loose. I was standing there thinking when I heard this girl scream. She sounded like Corkie the time we threw the dead fish into the shower with her. There was something awful going on down there, a mugging or a purse-snatching or something terrible, so what does yours truly do? I started running downhill toward them. Don't look so surprised. It's just something you do when you find yourself on a creepy planet, undressed and stone cold, with nothing else around except the two moons in the sky. Did I mention that there were two moons? Well, there were. I ran toward the people below because I needed a lift into town, wherever it was, and if I helped the poor girl out maybe her daddy would let me stay at their place for a while.