There and Back Again

When a asteroid miner stumbles upon a mysterious message pod, he finds himself in the middle of an adventure involving the richest family in the galaxy, who believes what he has found could be the key to mapping the wormhole system. 12,500 first printing.

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.

A book written by the pseudonymous Max Merriwell, Murphy (Nadya, 1996, etc.) informs us (Merriwell also has a pseudonymdo you really want an explanation here? Thought not), retelling the adventures of Bilbo Baggins (hence the title) in a SF milieu. So it is that ``norbit'' Bailey Beldon, in his steam-powered spaceship, recovers a battered message pod belonging to the all-female Farr clone family. The pod contains a map of some of the wormholes created by the vanished alien Old Ones, and it pinpoints a source of many more maps. Since wormholes are the only practical method of long-distance space travel, the acquisitive Farrs dwarf-equivalentsjump at the chance to form an expedition. Gandalf becomes Gitana, a female part-cyborg adventurer. The Resurrectionists, who capture people and harvest their body parts for implanting into machine-slaves, are goblins. Elves appear as ``pataphysicians'' (to them nothing is real and nothing really mattersor something). And so forth. The Ring manifests itself as an Old One device that can slow down or speed up time for its bearer. Bailey's adventures faithfully recount Bilbo's, so readers can amuse themselves by matching these with the original, though Murphy's constant borrowing of phrases verbatim from Tolkien rapidly grows more irritating than entertaining. Engaging, mostly, but when does genuflection slide away into outright imitation? Stay tuned for The Wild Angel by Mary Maxwell by Max Merriwell by Pat Murphy (don't say you weren't warned). -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A diminutive asteroid miner discovers a mysterious message pod and plunges headfirst into an adventure that takes him and a crew of garrulous, bickering clones on a whirlwind journey into the heart of the galaxy in search of a legendary artifact. Murphy (The Falling Woman) pays deliberate homage to Tolkien in her affectionate retelling of The Hobbit, with outer space as backdrop. She ably demonstrates the durability of a good tale in this tongue-in-cheek account of a reluctant hero who rises beyond his own expectations. A good selection for both YA and adult sf collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.