The Lost Tales of Oz: A Review

            When you start really getting into the Oz books, you always keep wanting more. I don’t know what it is about the series, but it’s extremely addicting. It’s the reason the original publisher put out forty of the books, and it’s the reason they kept being written decades after L. Frank Baum died and are still being written now. They may vary in quality from book to book, but there’s nearly always something to enjoy about each of them. It’s an escape from the dreary Outside World, as the Ozites refer to our realm. When I finished binge-reading all of the public domain Oz books online while stuck working at a call center, I needed something else to treat my newfound Oz addiction with. There are plenty of good modern Oz books available online for free as I discovered. In my search for more, I was inevitably led to the website of the small publishing house The Royal Publisher of Oz, which handles newly-written Oz fiction that sticks to the canon of the original books. Their website has a comprehensive timeline which includes basically any piece of Oz fiction that stays true to canon (so no Wicked or Dorothy Must Die for example) and all sorts of other canonical information; which is helpful to those of us who don’t have the time or means to read thousands of books and short stories. And since Oz canon is notoriously inconsistent, it even does all of the mental gymnastics needed to make sense of all the contradictions in L. Frank Baum’s works as well as the further inconsistencies introduced by later authors in the series. It’s really a monumental task.

            So once I found myself with a little bit of disposable income, I decided to get one of their books. I chose The Lost Tales of Oz, a collection of short stories written by various authors, with illustrations by Eric Shanower, a renowned illustrator within modern Oz works. The edition I got was paperback, although I kind of wish I’d spent a little more for the hardcover version because it’s a shame to get such a beautiful cover bent out of shape while reading it. At least after one read-through it’s still in fairly good shape. Anyway, I enjoyed the whole book overall, it did the job as far as satisfying my Oz addiction. Out of the stories, I pretty much liked them all, but I have my favorites. I’ll go ahead and speak briefly about each of the stories, plus the framing device. I’ll try to steer clear of spoilers, but there are a couple stories where I think to properly discuss them I’m going to have to spoil them; I’ll warn you when I do it.

            We start with Dorothy, Betsy and Trot, three girls who’ve come to live permanently in Oz (and if you didn’t realize Dorothy eventually came to live in Oz permanently after visiting several more times you need to get with it and read the original books, it wasn’t just a dream!), deciding to spend a rainy day in the Emerald City Library. Betsy and Trot first speak with the librarian, Ann Tiquarian, who explains that every time someone in the Outside World writes an Oz book it eventually ends up in the library, sometimes before they’re even finished being written, and she has to sort through the true stories and the false ones (like Wicked and Dorothy Must Die, the former story is mentioned). The girls soon find Dorothy already in the library, studying some “lost histories” of Oz from this section of the library, each of which is a short story presented in this book. I really loved the whole concept of it. It should probably be mentioned that since no one ages or dies in Oz, all three of these little girls are actually over 100 years old by the time this is taking place, and have had so many adventures they don’t remember them all. Each story in the book has an introduction presented by one of the girls, and we return to the framing device every now and then throughout the book.

            The first story is The Great and Terrible Oz Mystery by Michael O. Riley. Ojo, the Munchkin boy we first met in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, has developed a hobby for pretending to be a detective. But, what started as an innocent game soon takes a terrifying turn when, upon spying on the Wizard of Oz, he finds reason to believe the Wizard isn’t human at all. He comes to this conclusion after hiding out in the Wizard’s private magical laboratory and seeing a shape-shifting grotesque monster enter and leave, and then discovering a realistic mask in the Wizard’s likeness. He goes to his adult friends for help, and they plan to expose the Wizard at an upcoming public event. The twist at the end is something that will make sense if you’ve read the 6^th Oz book The Emerald City of Oz; anyone who hasn’t likely won’t get it. But if you do get it, it’s a nice twist.

            The second story is The Witch’s Mother of Oz by Paul Dana, who’s written a series of Oz books that I really want to read, but haven’t yet. This story reveals the backstory of Mombi, one of the antagonists of the 2^nd Oz book The Marvelous Land of Oz, as Mombi’s mother decides to contact her. Mombi is a character that didn’t really reach her full potential in the original books, having been forgotten by Baum until the next author of the series Ruth Plumly Thompson eventually decided to use her and kill her off via execution, in a way which fans didn’t really like since it involved Princess Ozma being uncharacteristically cruel. So later stories brought her back. But the reveal in this short story does explain a lot about Mombi, and is a good character building sketch.

            The third story is The Trade: A Langwidere Story by Mike Conway. Languidere appears in the 3^rd oz book, Ozma of Oz, as the princess of the land of Ev who has a collection of heads which she switches day by day. If you saw the movie Return to Oz and this sounds familiar, that’s basically her except in the movie they made her more villainous and named her Mombi. In this story, a young woman named Cari with a severe case of body dysmorphia approaches Langwidere in hopes that she’ll assist her suicide by removing and putting her ”homely” head in her collection. Let’s just say they come to another arrangement. This one’s a very short story, but interesting for its themes of body image and what beauty is.

            The fourth story is Ojo and the Woozy by J.L. Bell. It’s a cute little slice-of-life story about Ojo and his friend the Woozy, who is a somewhat doglike creature whose body is completely cubed (think of Minecraft). Ojo is playing fetch with the Woozy, and a group of other young boys witness this and offer to play catch with the ball and challenge one another to throw the bar the furthest. Ojo has to learn how to throw properly, but once he does, he upsets a beehive and they all get attacked by bees. The Woozy eats bees though, so you can imagine how it all turns out.

            The fifth story is the first of three stories by Nathan DeHoff that give us insight into the other searches for Ozma in the book The Lost Princess of Oz. In that book, one of the original 14 by by L. Frank Baum, Ozma gets kidnapped by an evil magician and Glinda gathers four search parties to scour Oz for her. We only ever really follow Dorothy’s search party into the western Winkie Country, which is the one to eventually find Ozma. These stories tell us what happened to the three search parties that were unsuccessful. It’s something I thought about when reading The Lost Princess of Oz; what was everyone else doing? The first story follows the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman in their search in southern Quadling Country, where they meet characters from the book Dorothy of Oz by Roger Baum (such as Marshall Mallow, a living marshmallow, and the China Princess), which may be more widely-known from the CGI animated film Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return. Dorothy of Oz isn’t part of the Oz canon since it dismisses all of the original sequels (and I could go on about why it irritates me they made a movie based on this book and not the original sequels, but maybe I’ll save that for another blog post), but I guess these characters are canon now. The writing style here is full of puns and very funny, almost more like something Ruth Plumly Thompson would write. I enjoyed it. The second follows Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-Tok, the Shaggy man and his brother on their journey north to Gillikin Country where they meet the seldom-seen Good Witch of the North; I didn’t really find this one as memorable, honestly, but it’s always good to see these lesser-known characters get a spotlight put on them. The final story has to do with Ojo, his Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt and their expedition into Munchkin Country. This story gives us some more insight into the characters, as their past was never really properly explored in the books (Unc Nunkie was once the heir to the Munchkin throne). We meet some of their old friends the “Cookywitches” who practice magic under the radar of Ozma’s ban on magic in Oz and get a preview of a later story in the compilation, also by Nathan DeHoff, concerning the Wicked Witch of the East’s daughter Vaneeda. The three stories in all are a treat for those who’ve read the original books and will get something out of all the references to continuity and Easter eggs.

            Next up is Chop by Eric Shanower. Now this is one of my favorites. It goes to show that you can tell a dark story about Oz without changing anything about Oz itself. The fact that you can’t die in Oz may not always be a good thing, especially when you can be chopped into pieces and have no way out from your suffering. In The Tin Woodman of Oz we find out that the Tin Woodman’s former lover from when he was human, Nimmie Amee, found another man after he rusted, and this man also had his body parts replaced with tin ones. But then he rusted too. The tinsmith had leftover body parts of both Nimmie’s former lovers that were still alive, so he decided to stitch them all together and make a new person named Chopfyt, and Nimmie Amee became the lover of this Frankenstein’s monster. And this is Baum writing. The original Oz could get pretty creepy. Now this story takes it a step further; the young boy Button-Bright happens upon Nimmie and Chopfyt’s cottage, and Chopfyt shows him all of the sentient bunny body parts and mutilated animals he has in his collection, before he turns on Button-Bright. It’s a good horror story. As a light spoiler, the only thing I wish was done differently was how it was wrapped up in the interlude; Nimmie chooses to stay with her abusive partner after he has his memory wiped clean, Button-Bright somehow escaped unharmed. Maybe I think they should have gone all the way with it. And having one’s memory wiped clean by the Waters of Oblivion doesn’t always turn an evil person good, just look at Ruggedo the Nome King. I think Chopfyt will go insane again.  (Edit: I understand this was the editor’s choice and not the original intent of Eric Shanower, who expressed regret about the interlude following the story as well.)

            In Flesh of Burnished Tin by Jeffrey Rester is a very short story, which takes place with Nimmie Amee was a servant to the Wicked Witch of the East, giving us a glimpse into that chapter of her life. Yes, that poor girl never has any luck at all does she? Forced to serve a wicked witch, has not one but two boyfriends be turned to tin by said Wicked Witch and lost when they went to the middle of a forest and rusted, finally seems to find happiness with a Frankenstein monster only for him to become a sadistic psychopath. If you want proof that Oz is not just a happy-go-lucky, carefree world of rainbows and kittens, just have a look at Nimmie.

            Diplomatic Immunity by David Tai is something where you really need to have read L. Frank Baum’s Sky Island beforehand. This was part of the fantasy series Baum tried to quit Oz to do, only to be forced to return to the Oz series for financial reasons. Luckily this book is also public domain and as freely available as the Oz books. Anyway, in the story, Sky Island descends on Oz and Trot, who was made princess of Sky Island, has to choose between the two magical lands.

            The next story is The Scrap Bag Circus of Oz by M.A. Berg, in which Scraps the Patchwork Girl meets some relatives of hers, as it were. Animated stuffed animals made from the same patchwork quilt she was made from. They get to bond and put on a circus show. This is another really short one. It was almost a slice-of-life story, but one with supernatural elements. Whether or not you’ll be into the story probably depends on how you feel about Scraps.

            The next couple of stories, The Wizard in New York and Ali Cat in Oz by Sam Sackett, go together and could really be its own novella, being just over 100 pages. The Wizard of Oz gets a little homesick for the real world and wants some new ideas for his inventions, so he gets Glinda to send him to the World’s Fair in 1939. We get to watch as he beholds how the world has changed in the almost forty years or so since he returned to Oz. The World’s Fair is described in great detail, and it seems that the author either did a ton of research or was actually there. The Wizard also makes it to a movie theater to watch Laurel and Hardy and of course The Wizard of Oz, which he has critiques on, but overall likes. And we get the Wizard’s candid thoughts on pre-World War II America from the perspective of someone accustomed to a moneyless, classless utopia. He’s disappointed that after the horrors of the First World War the world hasn’t learned its lesson and appears to be on the brink of another world war. I tend to agree with the Wizard’s critiques on the Outside World. For some reason the Wizard really wants to bring Laurel and Hardy into Oz, even though of course they’re actors who have little in common with their on-screen personas.

They even have an amusing illustration. 

Eventually when he does get back to Oz, Glinda finds some terminally ill Laurel and Hardy impersonators to send to Oz instead, which was probably a good call, I think. I’m guessing the inclusion of Laurel and hardy into the narrative is just something the author really wanted to do, because the story really didn’t need their inclusion. I do wonder if there were any legal potential entanglements that could have happened when their likeness was used. But, more than likely if it is some kind of copyright violation no one is going to say anything. I guess it’s interesting if you know Oliver Hardy played the Tin Woodman in a silent movie version of The Wizard of Oz. Why not bring The Three Stooges to Oz as well? Or Buster Keaton? Imagine the stunts they could do in Oz without worrying about death. Anyway, during the Wizard’s stay in New York he takes in an alley cat and names it Ali. So the second part, Ali Cat in Oz, is all about the adventures Ali has in Oz, during which he is kidnapped by gargoyles and has to find his way back to the Emerald City. This is a bit more of a traditional Oz story in that sense. Maybe this is because I read it first, but it reminded me a lot of the other modern Oz story Eureka in Oz, another story about a cat being lost in Oz. It was still a good read though.

            The next tale is Lurline and the Talking Animals of Oz by Joe Bongiorno. This tells the in-depth history of what it was like when Lurline first enchanted Oz and made it a fairyland, and the ensuing chaos that resulted when animals suddenly started talking and the like. It is written via journal entries from someone who lived through it. Stories like this serve to make Oz seem more like a real place, by fleshing out the exact circumstances under which Oz was enchanted. I particularly found the genesis of the country of Mudge interesting (this is a small kingdom of Oz from Thompson’s The Cowardly Lion of Oz which is shut off from the rest of the country due to their general violent and thieving nature), which according to this story was started by people who rejected Lurline’s offer of utopia and peace and treating animals as equals. It’s full of nice little touches like that for those who know the original books pretty well. 

            Next we have Tommy Kwikstep and the Magpie by Jared Davis. This one concerns a minor character from The Tin Woodman of Oz who wished himself to have ten pairs of legs by mistake (thus giving John R. Neill something fun to draw), but through magic is able to get just one pair of legs again. I’m sure Handy Mandy would be disappointed in him for not embracing his unique number of appendages. At any rate, this short story happens to be a romance, and is about how Tommy Kwikstep meets the son of Jinjur from The Marvelous Land of Oz. This being Oz, no one really questions the same-sex relationship, except for Dorothy, who is from the Outside World, and we must remember, was probably born in the 1890’s. It was tastefully done, the author probably chose wisely by having the romance be between a very minor character and an original one. I can’t imagine anyone starting a shipping war over Tommy Kwikstep.

Any resemblance to orange persons, living or dead, is purely coincidence.

            Ozma and the Orange Ogres of Oz by Nathan DeHoff starts us off with a very familiar-looking illustration that simply could not have been an accident. The story itself is a traditional “Oz gets invaded” story, which as I’ve begun to notice as a trend in Nathan DeHoff’s writing, really reminds me of something Ruth Plumly Thompson would have written. The Orange Ogres are a warlike tribe from elsewhere on Oz’s continent Nonestica that conquer surrounding countries, somehow find themselves in Oz, and decide to invade the Emerald City. Amusingly, this has happened so many times that Ozma and her friends really aren’t worried. They simply wait patiently for the ogres to be defeated by someone. Which they eventually are.

            Another favorite of mine in the collection is A Quiet Victory by Marcus Mebes. This story involves the poor, downtrodden phonograph named Victor who was accidentally brought to life in the same magical mishap that brought Scraps the Patchwork Girl to life in The Patchwork Girl of Oz. But everyone was mean to him and hated his music, even the usually easy-going Shaggy Man was nasty towards him and threatened to disassemble him. He didn’t ask to be brought to life; I mean it’s basically the equivalent of yelling at and threatening a newborn child for crying loudly. I suppose he was created as an effigy for L. Frank Baum’s apparent utter hatred for prerecorded music, which may seem irrational today when we have CDs and Mp3s, but given the poor sound quality of early phonographs may have been at least somewhat justified; although it’s not as if prerecorded music has ever replaced live music. Well Marcus Mebes must have felt the same way I do, because he gave Victor a bit of a redemption arc. We’re given a brief little biography on the phonograph’s many misadventures after striking it out on his own, eventually coming to live with the Musicker, another hated musician from the Oz series, who renovated Victor and tried to teach him to be quiet so that he would be accepted by society. Kind of a bitter sweet story, and open-ended. Which is a bonus for those of us who may want to use Victor in their own stories too. 

            After that we have Vaneeda in Oz by Nathan DeHoff, a character-driven story that concerns the daughter of the Wicked Witch of the East, Vaneeda. One of the old royal families of Munchkin Country has apparently been turned to glass, and of course Vaneeda is a suspect because of who her mother is. Vaneeda may still have political aspirations of her own, but as we’re told, she’s not her mother. I like that Ozma, raised by the wicked witch Mombi, tries to relate to Vaneeda since they were both brought up in that environment. It’s a nice little adventure which might even work expanded into a full-length novel; I think Vaneeda is an interesting enough character to carry a novel. There are some good ideas in this story.

            And the final story just might be my favorite, if only due to the concept; and this is one I’m going to have to spoil to properly discuss, so be warned. The Puppet Mistress of Oz by Andrew Heller begins with Ozma, Trot, Betsy and Dorothy having a simple tea party in their garden, during which the conversation turns to how each of them first ended up in Oz. Dorothy of course by now is reluctant to tell that old story for the millionth time, but when she does, Betsy starts to wonder how it was that Dorothy’s house landed exactly on the Wicked Witch of the East. They start to see more holes in the story. If Glinda knew how the Silver Shoes worked, why didn’t she show up immediately after Dorothy landed in Munchkin Country? Why force an innocent girl to risk her life again and again? And why did the Wizard order Dorothy to assassinate the Wicked Witch of the West? Was there perhaps some higher power pulling the strings? The signs point toward Glinda, and Ozma is distraught to think her good friend could be so manipulative. They go to ask the Wizard what really happened, and eventually they coax it out of him. He was being manipulated by Glinda the entire time, because she knew he wasn’t a real wizard. However, as soon as he spills this secret, Glinda herself appears and explains that sacrifices needed to be made to turn Oz into a paradise, and that Dorothy isn’t even the first girl to be put through this; the other girls sent to kill the Wicked Witches before Dorothy all died. She then erases their minds with a magic spell, all except the Wizard’s, and they forget the whole thing (and apparently this isn’t the first time they’ve figured all this out for themselves before and had to get their minds erased, either). I am so glad all of this is canon now, at least as far as the Royal Publisher of Oz is concerned. I knew there was something more to Glinda. Just because someone is “good”, doesn’t mean they’re nice. I mean “good” and “evil” (or wicked) really only exist in the mind anyway; they’re completely man-made and subjective concepts. Nobody thinks they’re evil. I mean how convenient was it that her political rivals were killed in suspicious accidents, and then she herself was able to install an obedient puppet ruler on the throne of the Emerald City in Ozma? Glinda has all of Oz completely under her thumb.  Further proof that you don’t have to change anything about Oz to tell a dark and twisted story.

            Although it probably really helps to have read most of the original books first to fully grasp the stories, I do recommend this book to anyone who finds themselves wanting more about Oz. It’s well worth your money and time to read. There wasn’t a single story I didn’t enjoy at least to a degree. I’ve really only read the public domain books at this point (plus a couple lucky library finds) and I still got through it fine, so you don’t have to have read all of them. It’s definitely aimed at fans of the book series; who are sadly small in number these days. Perhaps if you have a kid who’s into Oz they might enjoy it, although Chop might be a bit scary for them. I’ll probably share this book with my son one day anyway when he’s older. This book deserves more attention than it’s gotten in the two years since it was published, it really does.

            Anyway, I’ll likely post a somewhat shortened and simplified version of this review on Amazon and Goodreads just to help some fellow authors out.