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Continuing my journey down the yellow brick road…

Posted in books, Classic literature, movies, Wizard of Oz with tags Baumalong, Book Report, books, Frank Baum, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on February 20, 2013 by Paxton

On January 31, 2012, I made a resolution to read all of the original L Frank Baum Oz books in 2012. I completed that goal on Dec 20, 2012, just under ten months later. You can visit my Oz Archive to see the reviews of all 14 of those books.

It was a fun ride and I’m really glad I finally did it. I have such an affection for the original movie, which led me to read the original book and even through reading these 14 books, I have kept that love. The books were mostly good. Yes, there was some bad, but nothing was just terrible. I would have thought that by the end of this challenge I would be a little “Oz’d out” if you know what I mean. But, honestly, it’s just kindled that flame a little bit more. I think I don’t want this column to end.

While I don’t plan on making another year long resolution, I do plan on reading more Oz and L Frank Baum books. After Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson took over Oz for another 19 books. Will I read all of those? Maybe. Eventually. But not next year. There are also other movies like 1974’s Journey Back to Oz and the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful which will be released in March 2013. I will continue to consume this media and review them under this banner. I’ll even continue to read some of Baum’s other non-Oz writings like The Sea Fairies, Dot and Tot in Merryland and Father Goose: His Book.

I just have enjoyed myself so much experiencing this challenge that I want to keep it going. And I plan to.

Thank you for experiencing it along with me. Stay tuned for more to come.

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Review of Oz Book 14: Glinda of Oz (1920)

Posted in books, Classic literature, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags Book Report, books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, Wizard of Oz on February 18, 2013 by Paxton

L Frank Baum’s fourteenth and final Oz book was published the year after his death in 1920. It was called Glinda of Oz.

It has been said that Baum only barely finished the manuscript for this book before his death. I’ve also read where he didn’t finish it and either an editor at Reilly & Lee or one of his daughters finished the book. It is unclear which is the truth. But the majority of the book was indeed written by Baum before he died. The very next book, The Royal Book of Oz, was actually originally credited solely to Baum with the publishers saying it was written from Baum’s final notes. However, this isn’t true, The Royal Book of Oz is entirely a story written by Ruth Plumly-Thompson and this book was Baum’s last.

In this story, illustrated again by John Neill, Ozma and Dorothy travel to some of the outlying lands of Oz to settle a dispute between two peoples, the Skeezers and the Flatheads. Both people are set to go to war and Ozma wishes to stop it before it gets to that point. However, Ozma and Dorothy are trapped by the Skeezer queen in her glass covered city which is magically submerged under the lake on which it previously sat. A group of Oz’s greatest citizens band together to figure out how to raise the city and save Ozma, Dorothy and the other trapped Skeezer people.

There are parts of this story that are pretty good, and there are parts that aren’t very good. One of the things that seemed completely ridiculous were the amount of people that traveled to help Ozma and Dorothy in the end. There were like 20 people traveling over land to try to raise the submerged city. The only people that absolutely needed to go were Glinda and The Wizard. That’s it. They are the only two people in Oz who can legally work magic and since the city is, you know, magically submerged, they are the most logical ones to go. Woggle Bug didn’t need to go. What the hell was he going to do? And Shaggy Man? Was he going to use the Love Magnet to make the city love him so much that it raises above the lake’s surface? Absurd. The whole of the Oz council went. Jack Pumkinhead was there for some reason. Why did all of these people need to go? They didn’t. Glinda and The Wizard wound up needing help from three other ancient wizards to fix the entire mess anyway. Just seemed a little excessive to me. Like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.

(Via My Delineated Life)

While I only kind of liked the book, it’s a bittersweet ending knowing that this is the final Baum Oz book. After this Ruth Plumly-Thompson writes like 19 or 20 books in a row. All illustrated by John Neill. So while this isn’t the best of the books, it’s still an okay read. I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire series. I hate to see it end. But, it doesn’t have to end there. There are still some other Oz goodies I can read/watch/review. I may even start delving into Plumly-Thompson’s archive. I honestly would love to read John Neill’s three Oz books that he wrote and illustrated, but they are long out of print.

Below is my checklist of Oz books. I’ve crossed off all of the books. I was able to finish all 14 of the original L Frank Baum Oz books in 2012, which concludes the challenge I set for myself and started back in February 2012 with the very first Oz book.

Review of Oz Book 13: The Magic of Oz (1919)

Posted in books, Classic literature, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags book, Book Report, Oz books readthru, pop culture, review, Wizard of Oz on February 13, 2013 by Paxton

The thirteenth book in Baum’s Oz series was called The Magic of Oz. It was published in 1919, one month after L Frank Baum had died due to complications after having a stroke.

Tin Woodman of Oz

This story begins with a magician who discovers a simple magical word for transforming anything and anyone into anything and anyone he wishes. The word is complex and must be pronounced exactly, but once learned is very easy to execute. After Ozma declares that only Glinda and the Wizard are able to perform magic in Oz, the magician retires but writes down his discovery in a secret compartment in his magical laboratory. Years later the magician’s son happens upon the secret word, figures out how to use it and escapes his village to do wicked things across the land of Oz. The son, Kiki Aru, joins up with the original Nome King, Ruggedo, who was exiled in Book 3 – Tik-Tok of Oz, to exact revenge on the denizens of The Emerald City, most notably Ozma and Dorothy. The plan involves tricking the animals of Oz to revolt against the Emerald City by convincing them that the people of Oz are going to attack and enslave the animals first.

Meanwhile, everyone in Oz is preparing for Ozma’s birthday and Dorothy and like 8 other people travel out into the Oz country side to find Ozma the perfect birthday present. Yeah, I’m not too thrilled with that part of the story. Trot and Capt Bill spend most of their time trying to obtain this magical flower that is floating in this island in the middle of a river in the northernmost part of Oz. Just not very compelling.

However, the scenes with Ruggedo and Kiki Aru convincing the animals to attack the Emerald City are pretty good. However, while out looking for presents, the Wizard and Dorothy stumble upon the plan and do their best to stop it. All while Capt Bill and Trot are magically stuck on the island with the magical flower.

Oh, and, spoiler alert, Dorothy and the Wizard train a monkey to jump out of Ozma’s cake and dance. That is their gift to her. On her birthday.

This is an oddly disjointed book. I liked about half of it. The rest is sort of silly, but in a bad way. Normally Baum is able to make the silly parts endearing, but this time, not so much. I’m not really going to recommend this book, even though we see the return of the original Nome King, one of my favorite Oz characters. It just seems a little pointless and dull. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of imagination and cool stuff to see, but by the end of the book I was a little disappointed.

Only one more L Frank Baum Oz book would be published after this.

Below is my checklist of Oz books. I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read. Next up is the fourteenth and final L Frank Baum Oz book, Glinda of Oz.

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Review of Oz Book 12: The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)

Posted in books, Classic literature, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags Book Report, books, Oz books readthru, pop culture, review, Wizard of Oz on January 21, 2013 by Paxton

The twelfth book in Baum’s Oz series was The Tin Woodman of Oz and it was published in 1918.

This was a surprisingly good book that actually has a very relevant title as opposed to a few other books in this series (I’m looking at you, Tik-Tok of Oz). And the book’s plot fills in a lot of back story to the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Ol’ Nick Chopper and The Wizard (he actually has no name and is only ever called The Wizard or Little Wizard) are telling tales in Chopper’s palace in the Winkie country. A wandering Gillikin boy named Woot arrives at the palace and begins asking how Tin Man became tin. Nick tells his origin in more detail about the witch Mombi cursing his axe and having his limbs cut off one by one. After each limb is cut off, he goes to a tinsmith friend of his named Ku-Klip to replace the limb until he was entirely made out of tin. After his accidents, Nick felt it wasn’t fair to marry his sweetheart, Nimmie Amee, since he didn’t truly love her any more due to not having a heart. So he leaves. This reminiscing causes Chopper to wonder what Amee is doing and to realize that he really should have married her like he promised.

So Nick Chopper, the Scarecrow, the Wizard and Woot travel to Munchkinland to see if Amee will still marry the tin woodman. They meet lots of adventures on the way and even come upon another tin man in the munchkin forest. This new tin man was a soldier named Capt Fyter who also fell in love with Nimmie Amee and had his sword cursed by Mombi in the exact same way as Nick Chopper. Which of course led him to Ku-Klip. He was caught in the forest many years ago and rusted in a rain storm. Obviously shocked by the similar circumstances of their creation this leads the group to seek out Ku-Klip the tinsmith to discover the whereabouts of Nimmie Amee. They also discover that Ku-Klip used the cut off human body parts of Nick Chopper and the Tin Soldier to create another person, Chopfyt (combination of the two names Chopper and Fyter).

From there they travel across Oz to where Nimmie currently resides to see if she wants to marry one of the tin men.

Aside from the copious amounts of back story we get on Nick Chopper, we also get a lot of back story about the Land of Oz itself. We learn that Oz wasn’t always a magical fairyland in which no one ages or dies. We learn that a fairy queen named Lurline bestowed upon Oz the fairy status and left one of her fairies to be its guardian. That fairy is Ozma. This sort of flies in the face of the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz, in which it was said that Ozma was just a long lost royal who was rightly returned to her family’s throne. Regardless, I really like this new back story. It was interesting from the beginning and Baum had a few nice surprises in store. I also really liked meeting Ku-Klip, the tinsmith who created the Tin Woodman.

From what I’ve read, the Oz books had begun to decline in popularity right before this book, but it became a huge hit and started a resurgence in Oz popularity. It even carried over into some of Baum’s other non-Oz books like John Dough and the Cherub.

Below is my checklist of Oz books. I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read. Next up, The Magic of Oz.

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Year End Book Report: The Best Books I Read in 2012

Posted in books, comic books with tags Book Report, books, comic books, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Year End Books on January 7, 2013 by Paxton

Here we are, my year end recap of the books I’ve read this year. You can check out my Google Spreadsheet for the full list of books I’ve managed to read in 2012 (and every year prior).

So, like last year, I’ll list out the top 5 books I read and the top 5 comics I read this year. I’m excluding re-reads in my evaluations. I’m only including books I read for the first time in 2012.

Here we go. In no particular order.

Books

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline – Okay, I’m immediately going to call myself a liar. I said these were in no order, but I’m telling you right now, this was the best book I read in 2012. Hands down. There was a lot of buzz going around about the book and I had several people recommend it to me. Which usually makes me not want to read things. However, my friend Trish over at Love, Laughter and Insanity believed that I would love it so much that she actually traveled to a bookstore in which Ernest Cline was signing, had him sign a copy of the paperback and then mailed it to me. And that’s why she’s awesome. Thanks, Trish. Your hard work paid off and it has been named as my favorite book of the year. Seriously, this book is the truth. Don’t read anything about it or the story. Just experience it. You’re welcome.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis – Honestly, this was the best book I read for most of 2012. Then, in early July, I read the above book. But even if this isn’t my #1, it’s absolutely in my top 5. This is probably also in the top 5 of Star Wars books of all-time. This book had been planned, started, stopped and delayed several times. Finally, James Luceno grabbed the reins and drove this baby home. It’s a very ambitious novel. Focusing on the behind the scenes machinations of Darth Sidious and his master, Darth Plagueis. It’s fascinating to see the rise of Plagueis, his meeting with Palpatine on Naboo, and their cultivating the plan that will eventually be unleashed in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This book is so good it makes The Phantom Menace a better movie. Luceno was never one of my favorite Star Wars writers but this book and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader have changed that. I’m now on the lookout for what Luceno plans to do next.

11/22/63 – Stephen King – I’ve been a fan of King’s work for years. My favorite stuff are his short story collections but I’ve read most of his other seminal novels. Earlier in 2012 I had decided to finally read The Stand. I didn’t just love it. And after 1130+ pages of that, I was reluctant to read another King book that tops 800 pages. But I acquired this hardback in early 2012 at a used library book sale for around a dollar. I’ve always been fascinated with the Kennedy assassination and time travel, so this was a perfect topic for me. And the story delivers. King really outdoes himself with this book. King meanders a bit in the middle, but honestly I didn’t mind because the characters were so engaging. Really, the Kennedy assassination is almost an afterthought. But when it finally comes it’s awesome. This book blew me away. I highly recommend giving it a shot. Especially since the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death is Nov 22, 2013. But get the eBook version. An 800 page hardback is a little tough to read.