Here's the review from the November 28
New York Times Book Review
and exerpts from a few others. More to come....
New York Times Review of
There and Back Again
Reviewed by Gerald Jonas
I cannot imagine a less likely premise for a science fiction novel than
turning J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy The Hobbit into a space
opera. Yet that is what Pat Murphy has set out to do in There and Back Again: By Max Merriwell..., and the result, to my great surprise, is a delight.
Bilbo, the hobbit whose story Tolkien told, here becomes Bailey, a "norbit," who makes his home in a hollowed out asteroid in a "quiet little backwater" of the solar system, where he scavenges metals and other minerals for a living. When he stumbles on a disabled "message pod," he finds himself up to his ears in adventure. Instead of the rambunctious dwarfs that accompanied Bilbo, Bailey hooks up with a group of Farrs, representatives of "the galaxy's largest, richest, and most famous clone." Bilbo's tutelary wizard, Gandalf, becomes Bailey's Gitana, a one-eyed pirate with equally elusive habits.
I have no idea what anyone unacquainted with The Hobbit would make of this; I suspect it might work as an entertaining romp on its own. But the fun for the rest of us is to see what Murphy has taken from Tolkien's original (which bears the subtitle "There and Back Again"), what she has ignored, and how she has transformed her borrowings. I wouldn't dream of revealing the secret treasure that Bailey discovers in place of Bilbo's ring or the galactic equivalent of Tolkien's dragon. Suffice it to say that Murphy knows when to pay homage to her inspiration and when to leave it alone. She also leavens the mix with sly references to Lewis Carroll and to Alfred Jarry, a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd.
As a longtime writer for the Exploratorium, San Francisco's interactive
science museum, Murphy can make even far-out scientific concepts—like the
cosmic "wormholes" that provide faster-than-light shortcuts through
interstellar space—sound comprehensible. Best of all, her deceptively
casual Tolkienesque prose is a pleasure to read: "But Bailey wasn't
listening anymore. It seemed to him that he had just passed an important
turning point. He had decided, for better or worse, not to go home just
yet."
A point of information: Pat Murphy recently decided to create an authorial
alter ego named Max Merriwell, and this fictional personage is also listed
on the title page as the putative author of There and Back Again.
If this stratagem helped her get into the mood to write this book, we can
only be grateful while we anticipate what she will do with The Lord
of the Rings, Tolkien's three-volume heroic romance for which The
Hobbit"turned out to be prologue.
From Library Journal
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.
Starlog magazine, December 1999
This light-hearted space opera version of JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit delivers old-fashioned sense of wonder in a simple, but not simplistic, adventure. ...Adding to the whimsy, Murphy has also included aspects of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" and, in the biggest joke of all, the book is ascribed to Murphy's alter-ego, Max Merriwell, a veteran author
who, of course, writes fantasies under "his" own feminine pseudonym.
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