originally published Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson, Guild America Books, 1993
Maureen Birnbaum is a J.A.P. from a Connecticut prep school who one day manages to find herself teleported to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, where she fights some tharks and such and meets a smoking hot Martian guy. Temporarily back on earth, she soon learns she can transport herself at well. Only she keeps missing Mars, instead finding herself in Pellucidar, Lagash (the setting of Isaac Asimov's classic "Nightfall"), the post-apocalyptic world of Robert Adams' Horseclans series, and other fictional worlds. Eventually her travels lead her to Yale University - in March 1966.
She soon finds herself reacquainted with Rod Marquand, an adventurer she had previously encountered in Pellucidar - now a student at Yale. Soon she discovers that someone is tormenting Rod by leaving photocopied pages from The Necronomicon. Then his roommate Sandy is abducted during the night by something slimy, and taken to Harkness Tower on the Yale campus. Their Maureen does battle with a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, and later encounters a wizened, aged Sandy surrounded by flying ethereal whatsiss which Maureen refers to as "paisleys". Maureen saves the day by getting Sandy to remember who he is ("Above all, think Yale!"). All is well and Maureen is off to her next adventure.
This, like the other "Maureen" stories, is an amusing trifle. Effinger is smart and a fine writer, but honestly I never found this or any of the other pieces laugh-out-loud funny.
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