by Gary Romeo
Barbarians were a quite visible lot after the success of the Conan the Barbarian comic book. There were plenty of knock-off characters: Claw, Iron-Jaw, Dagar, Wulf, and others. Marvel ruled the roost though and gave us the female “barbarian” Red Sonja. Blazing red hair and a chain-mail bikini! Red Sonja made her mark in popular culture.
Maureen Birnbaum, at first glance would seem to be a Red Sonja knock-off, but she isn’t, not really. She is the star of a science fiction parody series. That makes sense since George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002) was an SF author. He received acclaim with his first novel, What Entropy Means to Me (1972), when it was nominated for a Nebula Award. His popular trilogy of Marîd Audran novels were set in a 22nd-century Middle East. The three published novels are When Gravity Fails (1987), A Fire in the Sun (1989), and The Exile Kiss (1991).
Back in the day, when you wanted approval for a “barbarian” character you sent a note to L. Sprague de Camp, the main popularizer of a barbarian character. (Sadly, I do not have de Camp’s response.)
There are eight stories in this collection, if more exist, I am unaware. This collection will definitely give you the earliest adventures when the idea was fresh and the stories somewhat unique. First was the paperback edition shown below and then later a hardcover edition with a much sexier cover.
Diving right in, the book starts with an introduction by Mike Resnick. Mr. Resnick became “Muffy Birnbaum’s Number One Fan” listening to Mr. Effinger read one of his stories after they met at a SF convention in New Orleans.
Resnick credits Effinger as creating “an entirely new type of humor – Preppy Science Fiction.” Resnick later tells the reader that “George [Effinger] 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.”
The first “gem” is titled “Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson.” These stories have the conceit of being written by Bitsy Spiegelman (later Betsy Spiegelman, then Betsy Spiegelman Fein, then Elizabeth Spiegelman-Fein, and lastly Elizabeth Spiegelman) as told to George Alec Effinger. Subtle changes appear in the main character as well (in the first story, she is called Muffy, but later dislikes that name, preferring Maureen). There is a good amount of character growth and social commentary in this chain of stories.
In this first story Bitsy refers to Maureen as Muffy. Muffy has returned from a trip to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom. The story is written in the first person with Muffy chattering on about school, vacations, and fashion in a mock-stereotype pretentious preppy fashion. Muffy smokes, drinks, curses, and is a little boy crazy. Eventually she tells of her adventure on Mars and ERB is parodied in an insightful funny way when she tells of an attack by one of the green men of Mars:
“I remembered I could jump, but really. So I hop around for a minute or two to get my bearings and to stay away from the thing’s sword. I hop, and I jump, bounce, bounce, bounce, all around the landscape. […] My blond dream is still on the ground, and he’s watching, too. “Get a sword, dummy,” I yell at him, and he nods. That’s something else I forgot to tell you, Bitsy. All the people on this planet speak English. It’s really neat and convenient.”
Muffy eventually gets back to Earth and Bitsy takes her shopping to replace the Dejah Thoris type outfit she acquired on Mars. I think the above summary gives you the basic idea and general feel of how these stories go. Rather than going over each and every story I will simply say I enjoyed most, but not all, of the stories. The more familiar I was with what was being parodied increased my enjoyment. If you are well-read, you’ll probably like them all.
Here is a list of the rest of the stories (copied from Wikipedia) and the milieu she visits:
(“Nightfall” refers to the Isaac Asimov story and a feghoot (also known as a story pun or poetic story joke) is a humorous short story or vignette ending in a pun (typically a play on a well-known phrase), where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor.)
spraguedecampfan 
Fun one, Gary! There are three additional stories, published after the collection. The wikipedia article even mentions them; they are: “Maureen Birnbaum on a Hot Tin Roof” (originally published in the anthology South From Midnight, 1994; reprinted in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1996), “Maureen Birnbaum in the MUD” (originally published in the anthology Chicks in Chainmail, 1995; reprinted in the omnibus anthology Chicks Ahoy, 2010), and “Maureen Birnbaum Pokes an Eye Out” (originally published in the anthology Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear, 1996). MB is definitely an acquired taste, but she grows on you. I have the SFBC hardcover myself, and, I think, the CiC anthology, but haven’t read the remaining two additional stories. There will be no more of her adventures unless someone else takes up Effinger’s mantle; he passed away in 2002.