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I’m starting to read Stephen King’s The Stand….

Posted in books, Stephen King with tags books, pop culture, Standalong, Stephen King on June 1, 2012 by Paxton

My friend Trish over at Love, Laughter and Insanity has decided she wants to read Stephen King’s The Stand and is hosting a Readalong that she is calling The Standalong. I too have never read what is considered Stephen King’s greatest work and I count myself as a King fan. I’ve read a good chunk of his work including; Firestarter, Misery, Dead Zone, The Cell, The Long Walk, The Gunslinger and Eyes of the Dragon as well as Skeleton Crew, Night Shift and Different Seasons. However, I’ve always been intimidated by The Stand. What if I think it not only sucks but blows? Do I want to slog through 1000+ pages of a sucky-blowy novel? The quick answer to that is…NO. However, when Trish announced this readalong, I thought, this is a giant empty spot in my geek/pop culture box of tricks. I really need to read it, especially since I consider myself a King fan.

So, I girded my loins, ordered my copy of the book from Paperbackswap and signed myself up for Trish’s readalong. A familiar face also signed up for the Standalong, Shawn Robare from Branded in the 80s. It’s going to be a rollicking, apocalypt-y good time.

Here’s the copy of the book I got, it’s the uncut version, of course.

Officially, the readalong starts today. However, I won’t begin the book until this weekend. Well, assuming the person that sent me the book from Paperbackswap gets it here in the next day or so (no, I don’t have it yet). Otherwise, I’ll begin it on Monday. I’m looking forward to finally tackling this giant story.

If you want to join us, click the link above, sign up with Trish and get ready to hold onto your butts!

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Review of Oz Book 4: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on May 23, 2012 by Paxton

So, after finishing Book 3, Ozma of Oz, I have officially read the first trilogy of books and I have finished the initial set of Books of Wonder paperbacks I got off Paperbackswap.com. From here on out I actually have to obtain the books either from the library, Chamblin Bookmine or through my Nook. There are also tons of free ebooks of the Oz books I can download from places like FreeEpubBooks.com or ManyBooks.net. However, those free ebooks are text only. You don’t get the illustrations which, for me, is half the story (Yes, I’m an Oz nerd). So, I went searching in the Nook Store and found an illustrated ebook copy of the fourth Oz book, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz for 99 cents. And I pulled the trigger. And I read it on my Nook. Let’s take a look at that book.

Published in 1908, it was by this time that Baum had resigned himself to writing the Oz books. Before now, he had hoped to write of other lands and tales but due to the popularity of Oz, he had to keep returning to that land.

This book reunites the humbug Wizard from the first book with Dorothy Gale, who returned in the last book. The book begins with Dorothy arriving in California from Australia, where she went at the end of book 3. She is back in America to visit Henry at a Ranch on the California coast. She strikes up a friendship with the ranch owner’s nephew and they travel together. While traveling, the group is swallowed up by an earthquake and they fall into a fairy land beneath the Earth. Like in the last book, the majority of this book does not actually take place in Oz (despite the name of the book). The majority of the adventures actually take place in a few unnamed fairy lands as our characters try to make their way to Oz after falling through the earthquake.

Dorothy and friends first encounter a “vegetable people” who try to put them to death, but the Wizard falls to the ground in a hot air balloon just in time. The Wizard challenges the reigning sorceror and actually takes a sword and slices him in half like a potato. The group flee from there and head into a valley where all the people are invisible. And the reason all the people are invisible is to protect them against all of the invisible bears that keep attacking and eating people (I swear I am not kidding about that). The group goes from the valley into the mountains where they meet a crazy old man who makes holes (Yes. HOLES. Again, not kidding). They travel from there to the land of the Gargoyles. The Gargoyles are small creatures made entirely out of wood. It’s actually a pretty cool idea when you read it in the book as Baum gets very intricate about how literally these creatures are made.

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Review of The Woggle-Bug Book by L Frank Baum (1905)

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz with tags Baumalong, books, Frank Baum, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on April 30, 2012 by Paxton

Baum wrote a short book published in 1905 right before the third Oz book; Ozma of Oz. It featured a character that was introduced in the Marvelous Land of Oz, the Woggle-Bug. It’s not an “official” Oz book, however, since L Frank Baum wrote it and it features a character from the Oz series, I’m going to include it as part of my ancillary Oz materials reviews. It was called The Woggle-Bug Book.

“Sire, I am a Woggle-Bug, highly magnified and thoroughly educated. It is no exaggeration to say I am the greatest Woggle-Bug on Earth” – HM Woggle-Bug, TE

The book takes the Woggle-Bug character out of Oz and transplants him into a nameless city in America. We aren’t told how he got there and not too many people seem distressed that a giant talking bug in a top hat is walking around the city streets in broad daylight. The bug falls in love with this crazy colored plaid dress, follows it around as it’s passed from person to person and falls in love with whomever has the dress at the time he sees them. After falling in love with a Chinaman wearing the dress as a Chinese robe, the Woggle-Bug mistakenly gets onto a balloon that carries him to Africa where he barely escapes vicious Arabs that want to kill him. He then wanders into a hidden forest with talking animals that feel more like an Oz book than the events in the rest of the book. This hidden animal kingdom is guarded by a group of bears with guns that are awesomely called a “bearicade”. The story really is weird. It’s funny and strange in some ways, but overall, it’s weird. Plus, there’s a lot of ethnic humor which, I guess, was popular at the time. However, it’s rather jarring today.

This book evolved from a series of Oz comic strips called The Queer Visitors from Oz that were used to promote the second Oz book (I’m trying to get a hold of a copy of these strips for review). The strips took popular Oz characters and transplanted them into America for various adventures. Those strips were popular enough that Baum thought that formula would work again. It wasn’t completely out of left field, the Woggle-Bug had become sort of a national fad at the time. There were Woggle-Bug postcards and board games (today, he even has his own Facebook page). Also at this time, Baum was trying to mount a stage musical about the Woggle-Bug to recreate the smash hit 1902 stage version of Wizard of Oz. This book was adapted from that stage play. Unfortunately, the fad died and the Woggle-Bug play and book flopped.

Now, this book is sort of a one-off curiosity. It is not considered Oz canon.

Review of Return to Oz (1984)

Posted in movies, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on April 20, 2012 by Paxton

In my article about adaptations of The Marvelous Land of Oz, I mentioned that the 1984 movie Return to Oz was an adaptation of two of the Baum Oz books. Specifically, it’s a combination of Oz books 2 (Marvelous Land of Oz) and 3 (Ozma of Oz).

After finishing Book 3, I decided to re-watch Return to Oz the other night for the first time in maybe 10 years. Since it’s sort of a cult, underground hit, I thought I would give it a quick review for you guys.

So, WOW, the first twenty minutes of this movie are DEPRESSING. This movie starts a few months after Dorothy has returned to Kansas. The farm is destroyed from the twister. I mean, everything is in shambles. Uncle Henry and Auntie Em are trying to rebuild everything. Uncle Henry broke his leg and now just sits around drinking all day doing nothing. Em is stuck doing all the work. Everytime Dorothy brings up her trip to Oz, Em just shuts her down. No one believes Dorothy’s trips were real. She’s starting to believe they weren’t real. Em takes Dorothy to a “mental hospital” to have a psychiatrist take a look at her. The psychiatrist actually intends to hook Dorothy up to a machine for shock treatments. SHOCK TREATMENTS. This movie was actually showing Dorothy in this creepy old asylum about to have her head lobotomized. I didn’t remember any of this and started to question whether I actually wanted to finish the movie.

So I continued on, Dorothy is saved by a mysterious girl and runs out of the asylum into a thunderstorm. Dorothy is knocked out and wakes up back in Oz. The movie essentially takes the framework for the third book, Ozma of Oz, and adds the characters from the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz. The main changes to the story in Ozma for the movie were to remove everything having to do with the fairy Land of Ev. All of the events in the movie happen in Oz. And not just Oz, but a dilapidated, ghost town of Oz. Also, while they appear on the poster, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion are relegated to cameos at the end. The other 15 characters in the poster above were given all the screen time. Another change is that Mombi is the main villain (and the current ruler of Oz which is why it’s so run down). We do get to see the awesome Nome King from Book 3, however he looks like Ice Man from the pilot of Misfits of Science. And although he’s the King of the Nomes, you really don’t see any other Nomes. He’s a king of one, I guess. He’s the one telling Mombi what to do.

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Review of Oz Book 3: Ozma of Oz by L Frank Baum (1907)

Posted in books, movies, Wizard of Oz with tags Book Report, books, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on April 18, 2012 by Paxton

It’s time to take a look at the next book in the original Baum Oz series; Ozma of Oz. Click the image above to see the previous entries in my Oz book read through.

ozma of oz - books of wonder

Ozma of Oz was released in 1907. It is the third book in the series. It had been three years since the last Oz sequel, Marvelous Land of Oz. It also featured the triumphant return of Dorothy Gale.

This book was sort of a departure. Instead of taking place in Oz, it takes place in a neighboring fairy land called Ev. Dorothy is traveling with her uncle on a boat when a storm hits and carries Dorothy to the fairly land of Ev. There Dorothy meets more crazy weird characters that she winds up traveling with. Once Dorothy realizes she’s in a similar fairly land that happens to neighbor with Oz, she doesn’t yearn to travel home to Kansas, like in the first book, she longs to return to Oz.

Also returning in this book are the original three companions; Scarecrow, Tin Man (Nick Chopper) and Cowardly Lion, who makes his first appearance since Book 1. And, obviously since the book is named for her, Princess Ozma also returns. The new characters we meet are Billina, a talking hen, Tik-Tok the mechanical man and the Hungry Tiger, a companion of the Cowardly Lion that is always hungry (obviously). We also meet the royal family of Ev (who need rescuin’) and the Nome King. Tik-Tok and the Nome King would prove popular enough that they would feature in several books later in the series. One of them written by Baum himself.

Gnome_king_oz_cover tik_tok_of_oz

So Dorothy becomes stranded in Ev. Dorothy is joined by the hen, Billina, and eventually Tik-Tok, the mechanical man. We also meet these characters called The Wheelers (who show up in the movie Return to Oz) and Dorothy is taken hostage and locked away by the current Princess of Ev. The current Princess is very vain and can change her head whenever she wants. She keeps like 30 heads in her closet. So, the Princess wants Dorothy’s head, is refused and locks up Dorothy and her friends. Hearing about this, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion come with Ozma and her army from Oz across the Deadly Desert to rescue her. Next we get this whole back story about the land of Ev. The original King was a douchebag (my words, not Baum’s). He sells his entire family to the Nome King, who is a very magical being, in exchange for long life. Then the idiot king goes and drowns himself in despair for what he’s done. Like beheadings in the first book, this book is filled with people who drown themselves or nearly get drowned. Dorothy is almost drowned in the beginning of the book. This king does it to himself and there are several other mentions of drowning throughout the book. This Baum guy has serious issues. He should get them looked at, STAT.

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