Presently before me, George Alec Effinger's Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson, in which a somewhat-affectionately caricatured New York City girl finds herself in all manner of adventures and situations, mostly borrowed from classic science fiction and fantasy yarns. Somehow it all works and the tales of derring-do, related in the first person by Maureen herself at a breathlessly breakneck pace, do not fail to entertain. Not especially deep but who cares?
If you ever, like, found amusement that the same individual who hankers for a nice egg cream[1] also considers 250 rounds downrange to be "a good start" for a day at the range, you may enjoy these tales.
Sidenote: according to Maureen, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Frank Kelly Freas were exactly right about the working uniform for barbarian swordspersons. Who knew?
Bonus: Turns out bread pudding is her fave dessert, too;[2] in one adventure, we see the full matrix of bread pudding possibilities as of 1966. (It all makes sense in context. Mostly!)
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1. I finally broke down and used club soda to mix up several. Yum!
2. I cannot pass the stuff up. Can not.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
2 comments:
I know what you mean about bread pudding! And, as I recall, the classic Brooklyn egg cream is made with Fox's U-bet chocolate sauce.
Having recently read the Barsoom books for the first time (! yeah I know !), this sounds like a fun little romp.
Too bad it isn't in a Kindle edition.
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