Oz Reimagined edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen

L. Frank Baum's Oz seems to have regained quite some popularity recently with hugely successful musicals (Wicked) and a big new release film (The Great and Powerful Oz) hitting out screens not all that long ago. The anthology Oz Reimagined seems to be riding that wave.

The idea, as the title suggests, is to revisit L. Frank Baum's magical world and characters with a different spin on it. Like most anthologies Oz Reimagined has hits and misses. Unfortunately I found this particular collection to have more misses than hits.

The original story has a whimsy about it that has seen it endure over the years and remain a popular modern fairytale for generations. The stories for the most part had difficulty capturing that lightness and sense of wonder. Oz is an unreal world and a number of the stories seemed to want the real world to intrude far too much on the fantasy.

As I said Oz is a modern day fairytale and this collection is definitely not for children. A number of the stories were disappointing. More than one of them seemed to be part of a larger concept and were cut off quickly when they reached their page limit, which made for a frustrating read as I got impression there was more story there than I was being told. I especially got this with Seanan McGuire's contribution Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust. A Meeting in Oz by Jeffrey Ford was quite an unpleasant tale and I doubt I would have included it in the anthology if it had been up to me. Dale Bailey's City So Bright was similar and it really didn't reference the original work at all.

There were however a few stories that did work for me. One was Tad Williams The Boy Detective of Oz. That may have been because it tied into his Otherland version of Oz and featured Orlando Gardiner from Otherland and I've always liked him as a character.

Ken Liu's The Veiled Shanghai, giving Oz an Asian flavour and setting, was very clever and quite well done.

Jane Yolen had an interesting spin on the whole thing with the first person Blown Away, which told the story of Oz as it may have really been. I felt it was the best written story in the collection.

Orson Scott Card's contribution: Off to See the Emperor gave us food to think about in telling how Baum's son may have had the experience that led his father to create Oz in the first place.

My favourite story of the lot was the final entry: Jonathan Maberry's Cobbler of Oz. That one nailed the feeling. It was a delight, an Ozian fairytale created a story within a story and it's protagonist Nyla the flightless Winged Monkey reminded me very much of Dorothy herself. A pleasure to read from start to finish.

Oz Reimagined is a valiant attempt, but unfortunately too many of the stories seem to understand what Oz means and can't capture the spirit of the original.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The 2nd of the B’s and the 5th book in the Challenge.

This was the 1st genuine ‘childrens’ book that was recommended. Even as a book for children The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a short book, at just over 100 pages it’s more a novella than a full length novel.

Most people know the book because of the 1939 film that made Judy Garland into a star. It’s written in a very simplistic, easy to read style and there is nothing particularly remarkable about the prose or the story itself, although some of Baum’s ideas such as animated scarecrows and tin men are delightful and were, for the time, (the book came out in 1900) quite original.

The book and the film differ on a number of points. For the most part, the movie follows the novel only in a very general way. Many details are omitted or altered, while some of the perils that Dorothy encountered in the novel are not even mentioned in the movie. The book has the Good Witch of the South, who is not named, and Glinda is the Good Witch of the North, the former did not appear at all in the fim. One of the most noticeable changes is the colour of Dorothy’s shoes. In the movie they were ruby slippers in order to take advantage of the fact that the film was shot in Technicolour. In the book they are silver shoes. Unfortunately the China Country and the Hammerheads were also cut for time reasons. The role of the Wicked Witch of the West was expanded for the film. She only appears briefly in the book and her demise is rather disappointing as she provides scant resistance to Dorothy and her friends and isn’t at all frightening.

It’s hard to pin down why this is a classic. It may be because of the time it was written, possibly some of the original ideas Baum came up with for it, it also could be due to the fact that Baum also wrote 13 follow up books which fleshed Oz out considerably and made it more real in readers minds than the original book would ever have done. The major reason is probably the film, which is a celluloid classic and you would hard put to find someone who hasn’t seen it at least once. The book Wicked and the stage musical of the same name wouldn’t have hurt, either.

If you’ve never read it you probably should. It won’t take long and at times it does give you that sense of wonder that only the very best fantasy provides. If you enjoyed it or want something similar for children to read you could try any of the other 13 Oz books, I’d also recommend Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair books, although they’re considered very politically incorrect in this enlightened day and age. Older readers may wish to tackle Gregor Maguire's Wicked.