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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch
From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: The Oz canon and the film
Message-ID: <1452@shark.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 21:29:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1452
Posted: Tue Jul  2 21:29:42 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 05:24:49 EDT
References: <2409@topaz.ARPA>
Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 34
Summary: 

In article <2409@topaz.ARPA> jsweet@uci-icsa writes:
>From: Jerry Sweet 
>
>
>Book 41: a few months ago, I saw a book named "A Barnstormer In Oz", by
>Philip Jose Farmer (I think--it sounds right, since he's the
>self-appointed chronicler/perpetuator of a number of "mythologies").
>Anyone read it?
>
>-jns

Yes, I read the thing.  This is a spoiler, in case anyone cares.

Farmer presents the story of a barnstormer (test pilot?) who disappears
through a "dimensional gate" which is a few hundred feet above ground,
open when certain wierd electrical conditions are met.

His pilot has no particular personal charm.  This individual discovers
that Oz is a besieged place ruled by the iron hand of a sex-witch (Glinda)
who uses her powers to hold off the influx of the energy creatures from
the desert regions which surround the oasis of Oz.  Every once in a while
one of the less malevolent energy creatures inhabits some mechanism, like
the tin statue, or the Barnstormer's airplane.

Dorothy is postulated to be a young girl who was accidentally thrown into
Oz by a tornado, and that Baum was a neighbor who got the story from her
when she returned later, and adapted it into a series of children's fairy
tales.  The majority of the story concerns the interaction between the
other-dimensional Oz and the American military.

As usual, Farmer completely destroys the character of the stories, making
something cheap, tawdry, and mildly pornographic out of the mileau of Oz.

Hutch