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From: BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest   V10 #233
Message-ID: <2407@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 00:11:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2407
Posted: Thu Jun 27 00:11:56 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Jun-85 08:17:40 EDT
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Bard Bloom 


> 
> Baum, who was called the Royal Historian of Oz, wrote 14 Oz books:
> 
>  1.  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  (reissued as The Wizard of Oz)
...
>  40.  Merry Go Round in Oz

Thank you for excluding P.J. Farmer's _A_Barnstormer_In_Oz_, which strongly
does not deserve to be in the Oz canon.  On one talon, Farmer based his book
on the premise that _The_Wizard_of_Oz_ was approximately true, but that all
the rest of the books were stories made up by Baum and Thompson and so on.
Then he made it SF, badly, and a generic Philip Jose Farmer violence-and-sex
story.  (Flame repellant: It's been a while since I read it, and after I
found out what Farmer intended I didn't read very carefully.  Too, my
impressions of lust and blood may have been heightened, because I didn't
expect or want to find either one in an Oz book.  *Some* things should be
sacred...  ) Anyone want to send Farmer some water from the Forbidden
Fountain?

(Spoiler!  But you know nothing bad will happen anyways...)

But then, when I reread some of the Baum books recently, I found them
bloodier than I remembered.  In _Ozma_of_Oz_, Dorothy turns a lot of Nomes
into eggs (-8 O.K., yolkier rather than bloodier 8-).  In
_Emerald_City_Of_Oz_, Ozma and the Scarecrow trick a horde of Nomes,
Whimsies, Phanfasms, and Growleywogs into drinking some water of Oblivion,
obliterating their memories and personality.  O.K., no-one died from these
spells, but what's the practical difference between those fates and death?
(Answer: ten-year-olds can't see that there is no practical difference.)

And I can see why Farmer wanted to do a more realistic Oz.  Ozma was acting
rather stupid: virtually ignoring a massive invasion of Oz, not thinking
about it until the evening before.  Their council of war (not-war, really)
was impressively frustrating.  Any fantasy gamer would have had a dozen
suggestions, like filling in the tunnel by the power of the Magic Belt
(which she did *after* the invasion).  I'd like to see some more Oz books,
keeping the charm and inventiveness of the originals, with
better-for-nominal-adults characterization.  (That was never the point of
the originals, of course.)  Maybe it's possible.

Bard
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