Some extended Oz stories I'd like to explore in a retelling.
Magical Mimics In Oz - Unlike the Others on this list I actually love this book, it has issues don't get me wrong like all the Oz books do but, it's my favorite out of the original 14.
And I think this would be a great story to give a horror retelling. You get to follow many characters of Oz, as well as some new ones as these creatures start a take over.
The Gnome King of Oz - I have been trying so hard not to go on a full on rant about how much I hate Ruth's portrayal of Scraps...with all the other women in Oz.
And I think she actually had an interesting concept here. A kingdom of Patchwork, of creatures that seem to be mixtures of either people wearing Patchwork or are part some type of Patchwork creature, they overwork their Queens so hard they need to capture new ones, and they choose Scraps...
...Scraps is then pretty much treated like a bratty child who doesn't want to work even though they're forcing her into enslavement (it's how Ruth writes her, it's hard to explain) and pretty much, though there is a scissor creature explaining this, she waits around to be saved by a man. Which is our dull Peter, Ruth's human boy character.
But the first part with the Kingdom of Patch I think is an interesting idea that could be, re-explored. Maybe they even make a deal with Dr. Pipt.
The Runaway in Oz - Another for Scraps. And pretty much all I'm taking from it is the idea of Scraps getting tired of certain treatment and certain things happening in Oz she decides to run.
Again I really hate how some of the later "Oz historians" treat Scraps, pretty much like a bratty child (though adult still but in a kids book context) and sometimes air-headed and often with a more sexist tone. And Baum had...many, many problems, even when it came to Scraps but I just feel this really is not her character and hate the treatment and portrayal of her.
That said. I do think the idea is fun. Even in a concept, Scraps is one of the few characters in the later Oz books by Baum who will question the main characters and somewhat mock their problematic ideals.
So a story about her getting tired of being treated in certain ways and certain things happening to Oz, to the point she decides to full on run away and explore on her own, is interesting. Of course with the same idea this was a breaking point that wasn't fully thought through, and some of the other characters that care about her go looking for her, and she does decide to come back.
Anyway. I have a few more like this, but it's late. A few that have been in particular on my mind of late of some expanded Oz stories I'd like to either see or attempt myself a re-write/re-telling of.
Last time, we left on our sick and despaired mister Baum, as he realized he could never kill the child of his mind and despite his best efforts, the Oz fan would NEVER LET GO.
So, he decided "What the hell... If they want Oz books, they'll get Oz books!". And so he wrote more, and more, and more Oz books. At least, Baum understood that, in effect, people literaly did not care about any continuity. They were just interested in A) seeing old characters return and B) having more inventions and new lands thrown at them. They were all about that nostalgia and worldbuilding, without any care in the world for any cohesiveness or continuity error. So Baum gleefully invented and added as much as he could and went full whimsical-worldbuilding in what is truly a chaos to piece together when you try to look at Oz as a cohesive fantasy.
However that's the thing with Oz: it is not a cohesive fantasy series. The first two novels were not meant to be serialized or have sequels, as such, when he started doing them, Baum was forced to change things. It is as early as the fourth book, "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz", which I like to call "BIG RETCON - the book" because it was Baum's first time at doing a huge lore retcon conflicting what was said in earlier books. Many people like to oppose in terms of worldbuilding Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - but I do believe Tolkien's archnemesis would be L. Frank Baum, with C.S. Lewis standing in the middle of the spectrum. Baum was just as prolific in content and enormous in scope as Tolkien when it came to worldbuilding... but when you put all things side by side it literaly makes no sense unless you look at the outside reasons that forced Baum to change his lore every three books or so. You know, it was a different time, fictional lore wasn't even a thing...
From six Oz books we went up to FOURTEEN Oz books in total. The man literaly kept writing them until his death... The last of the Oz books Baum wrote was "Glinda of Oz", published in 1920. L. Frank Baum died in 1919 from a stroke - he had finished the last Oz book, but it was only published posthumously... Yes, we can say the power of Oz was so strong it survived Baum...
It actually DID survive though... In a way you might not expect.
There are many, many ways to "cut" the Oz book series. There is the "original trilogy". There is the "original six books". You can go with "the fourteen books Baum wrote". But for decades the dominating division went by an official title, used by both publishers and fan-circles around the USA... The Famous Forty.
Yes, you heard it right... Famous FORTY.
"But... but why are there FORTY Oz books if Baum only wrote FOURTEEN? It's a mistake in spelling right?"
No. There are FORTY Oz books that are considered "official" (I am not even getting in the non-official ones) by Oz canon. Well, only if you are not a purist who considers that only the books Baum wrote are Oz-canon and the rest are just fan-sequels (I am such a purist). It doesn't help that so far ONLY the books L. Frank Baum wrote are in public domain, the others are still under copyright law.
And why did we go from fourteen to fourty? Why... For money of course! It has always been the reason why Oz went beyond its original "stand-alone novel format". "Money makes the world go round" as the song says...
When Baum died, his publishers of the time, Reilly & Lee, started SWEATING. Because the Oz series was still their best-seller, their cash-cow, their sacred little idol... They couldn't JUST stop it there! They needed to have the series continue... And you know what they say in the editing world! "If you author dies... JUST REPLACE HIM!"
The idea of replacing Baum as the author of the Oz novel actually worked like a charm thanks to something Baum himself introduced... Baum, as the series was serialized, inserted himself as a character of Oz. More precisely he refused to present himself as an author or inventor, and when dealing with fan mail (literal mail, letters) or writing his prefaces, he presented hmself as "The Royal Historian of Oz". It was part of the fun game he had with children: he pretended the Oz novels were all official chronicles of what actually happened in Oz, and that it was his job to write them down. (That's also why he hoped the sixth book great finale of "Oz is cut off from the rest of the world" would work at killing the series, because "Oh well, I'm stuck in the USA, too bad I can't get in Oz anymore to write my... What? What did you say? THEY SEND RADIO BROADCASTS NOW?")
When it came time to replace Baum, the editors just went "Hey, so, a new Royal Historian was hired by the Crown of Oz! Don't worry, the chronicles of what is going on in this new land are still around!". That's how Ruth Plumly Thompson came in the picture.
Now, I am not as knowledgeable on the other "Oz Royal Historians" as Baum. As I said, I am kind of a Baum purist. But here's some of the few things I know...
Ruth Plumly Thompson, the second "official Historian of Oz" by the editors' system was a huge fan of Baum's work, and so she jumped on the occasion to write more Oz books. (There were even rumors at some point that Thompson was Baum's niece and thus that the Oz books was just a family business). The Oz books were her main source of income, and so she worked VERY hard at doing Oz chronicles: she published one book each year.
Ruth Plumly Thompson's way of doing Oz was VERY different from Baum. I can't list all of the differences, but most notably Thompson' stories were closer to the traditional European fairytales, while Baum had always tried to subvert traditional fairytale tropes or avoid fairytale cliches at the time to truly do something new and fresh (him having a GOOD WITCH in the first Oz novel was a HUGE thing in the 1900s America where all witches were by default evil). Thompson also favored male protagonists (Baum always was fonder of female protagonists for Oz), and she introduced a lot of romances and love stories - something Baum was STRONGLY against, because in his aesthetic children did not care about romance and romantic love had nothing to do in youth literature.
Thompson wrote 21 OZ BOOKS, yes, 21, from 1921 to 1976. Well, to be exact, she wrote 19 books in one swift series from 1921 to 1939, then took a long Oz pause, and wrote two additional Oz books in the 70s, but these two books are not considered part of the "Famous Forty". The last of these two was not even an Oz book originally but rewritten to fit an Oz novel - "The Enchanted Island of Oz", published the year of Thompson's death. [This tactic of taking a standalone fantasy novel for children, and reinventing it as an Oz book, had been used by Baum himself prior. His tenth Oz book, "Rinkitink in Oz", was originally its own thing, before he rewrote it as part of the Oz series, explaining why Oz only appears in the final chapters of this novel].
While most of these novels are just as forgotten, if not more obscure, than the many other Oz books Baum wrote, there is one element that tends to regularly pop up in Oz adaptations. Have you never wondered why the Good Witch of the North is sometimes called "Tattypoo"? (A name I personally HATE). The name appears for example in "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz", despite Baum never giving any name to the Witch of the North. Well, this was a Thompson invention! She was the one who named the Witch Tattypoo in her book "The Giant Horse of Oz", where she worked at giving a backstory to this character... a VERY divise backstory among Oz fans for many, many reasons too long to explain here.
Now, I said famous FORTY, and yet with Thompson's books added we only have 33 books.... What's the rest?
Three Oz books, "The Wonder City of Oz", "The Scalawagons of Oz" and "Lucky Bucky in Oz", were published in the early 1940s by John R. Neill, considered the third "Royal Historian of Oz". What is very interestng is that John R. Neill had worked on the Oz series for a very long time... since the very early Oz books in fact.
Everybody remembers the original illustrations for "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" - these were done by an artist named W. W. Denslow. It was the art where Dorothy is this chubby little brunette girl. Well, you might be surprised to learn Denslow only worked on this Oz novel. When Baum wrote the sequel, "The Marvelous Land of Oz", Denslow did not return. Rather John R. Neill entered the picture. He would become the "official" artist of Oz, illustrating not only all of the Baum books (except the first one), but also all of the Thompson books. And while he originally tried to match Denslow's style to make a smooth transition for the child audience, he quickly grew his own style - he notably was the one who brought to us a tall, thin, blond and fashionable Dorothy that is a far cry from the more "proper farm girl" Dorothy of Denslow. In fact, Neill's work as an artist does show in the way he writes Oz, as he has very cartoony ideas and works heavily with the visuals, so that the text can allow for cool-looking illustrations.
Unfortunately, the Oz curse strikes again: Neill died in 1943, the very year following the publication of his third Oz book. There was a fourth Oz books in the plan, that he had written the manuscript of right before his death: "The Runaway in Oz". However, Reilly & Lee refused to publish the unfinished work... We would have to wait until 1995 for this book to finally see the light of day: kept by Neill's widow, it was finally published by the house Books of Wonders, in a format edited and illustrated by Eric Shanower (another prominent Oz artist which we will have to talk about later).
Outside of these three main Historians, three more were recognized by the editors. Jack Snow, who in the late 40s published two "official" Oz books, "The Magical Mimics in Oz" and "The Shaggy Man of Oz". He also created an "official guide" called "Who's Who in Oz", but which was noted to have some inconsistencies with the books (which is expected given the Oz series is INCONSISTENCY - THE SERIES). There are a lot of rumors around of a third, unpublished Oz book by Snow called "Over the Rainbow to Oz", but nothing allows us to confirm the existence of such a book.
Rachel R. Cosgrove published one "official" Oz book in 1951, "The Hidden Valley of Oz". She had prepared in 1954 a second Oz book, called "The Wicked Witch of Oz", but Reilly & Lee refused to have it publish because, at the time, "Oz books didn't sell" (CRAZY, right? Now, in the mid-50s, Oz books didn't sell anymore?). She still managed to have it published in the 1990s, by The International Wizard of Oz Club (another beast we'll have to talk about).
Finally, the last official "Royal Historian of Oz" was Eloise Jarvis McGraw, but she wrote her only official Oz book in collaboration with Lauren Lynn McGraw, her daughter. Their work was "Merry Go Round in Oz". They created another Oz novel, "The Forbidden Fountain in Oz", but while it was published it was not included in the "canon" Famous Forty, and in 2000 Eloise Jarvis McGraw published a third Oz novel alone, "The Rundelstone of Oz".
And thus you have it! The Famous Forty. The Forty books Reilly & Lee, the official publishers of the Oz books, deemed, edited and sold as the "canon" Oz books.
... But of course, this being Oz, and the Oz books entering public domain in the 50s, 60s and onward, the Famous Forty as far from the only Oz books to exist. Oh no...
On one side, you have The International Wizard of Oz Club, which I talked about previously. From the 50s onward they worked as the second main publishers of Oz books, since Reilly & Lee had stopped doing Oz novels on the accounts that "it doesn't sell anymore". It was the Club that published the last two Oz novels of Thompson, and the fourth unpublished novel of Neill, and the rejected novel of Cosgrove, and the second book of the McGraw duo, and many others! They published 8 Oz works in total from 1958 (Jack Snow's short story "A Murder in Oz") to 2006 (Gina Wickwar's Toto in Oz).
To that you can add three Oz novels that were recognized as "official" by the Baum Family Trust. Two were written by William Stout, "The Emerald Wand of Oz" (2005) and "Trouble Under Oz" (2006) ; the last was by Kim McFarland, "Sky Pirates over Oz" (2014)
And I am not even talking about the many books written by several descendants of L. Frank Baum! Two of Baum's sons attempted doing Oz books: Frank Joslyn Baum, the eldest ("The Laughing Dragon of Oz", 1934) and Kenneth Cage Baum, the youngest ("The Dinamonster of Oz", written in 1941 but only published in 1991). However the most prolific Baum-related author is without a doubt Roger S. Baum. Great-grandson of the original author, he wrote FOURTEEN Oz books, yes as much as his great-grandpa, starting with "Dorothy of Oz" in 1989, and ending with "The Oz Enigma" in 2013.
And ALL OF THAT is not even accounting for all the non-official Oz authors and their many, MANY books... Go check the Wikipedia pages for the list of Oz books, or the many pages of the Oz Wiki, you will be impressed.
I wasn't lying when I was saying there were Oz bookS in plural...
I’ve been crying about this since I got home tonight. My Oz collection. Complete and together. The Famous Forty, plus a few other goodies. Five genuine antique editions. Two verified first editions, including one with dust jacket intact (!) This took me 14 years to collect. I just wish I had a bigger bookshelf...
Alright talking about Magical Mimics in Oz in regards to Scarecrow x Scraps because I actually really love how he portrays them. Particularly after suffering through Ruth's writing of Baum's female characters.
And I am a silly shipper and at this point this shouldn't be much of a surprise on my account.
Later I may make a longer post with the actual quotes from the book but for now this is kinda just a ship gush post.
I really love his portrayal of them because I think he does a great job of showing how their relationship would look over time.
Because in the first book, which even as it's very cute they are very much in that first meeting crush and fascination. Then though they reference hanging out together and missing each other we don't really see them interact, other times they're together is in the extremely large groups.
Moving on we're ignoring Ruth but so does Jack Snow who is the author of this book.
They are both strong personalities, and they both have quite a bit of ego particularly regarding their brains.
So he shows them actually bickering some and going a little head to head about it, but they always come to some conclusion together and it's shown that has no affect on their relationship and it's just part of how their personalities interact which I, very much appreciate. And they tease each other, particularly Scraps.
A lot of people are quick to say Scarecrow hates her now other which I find odd (And yes I know why but let's not get into it...all I'll say is y'all no one has to ship them, always ship what you want, but if you're so offended by the female character being a love interest you have to hate on her every possible chance and try to push it so he hates her even though he flirted with her originally and their relationship never officially went past a crush so it doesn't actually hurt other ships...that's problematic).
But they still work together, they still hear each other out. A whole scene where Scarecrow just adores Scraps' brains while of course complimenting his own.
And a big thing I love to all of this, is I believe he does portray how their interactions will be later on in their relationship that's true to their characters and their relationship, but also, and what I feel gets conveniently left out when we talk about them in this book, is it's still shown they still do adore each other. Which, I love.
After they quite literally crash into each other (thus the picture above) they're pretty much attached at the hip, they're working together through the whole book, they still respect each other a great deal, when people go off at night to do other things they stay together talking the whole night, like mentioned above there are scenes where they just adore each other, even while calling each other out and having their strong personalities work together.
Anyway I won't go on too much more. But I do really love them in this book and I do really love how Jack portrays them, because I feel it's very true to their characters they are going to clash and tease but also they have worked out a partnership on how to work together, they respect each other and still adore each other, I think he did a good job of walking that line well and really love it.
And of course it makes my silly shipper brain who loves them very happy, which is how this ramble came out. I've also just been wanting to talk about them in this book since I don't see a lot of positive talk about them in it.
Anyway, that's all for now, thank you for reading!
Thinking about Ozma and Ozana after she moves in after the events of Magical Mimics.
Because pretty much this would be the first time Ozma would have someone around she is related to. And while not to her extreme Ozana was also put in a position to watch over other beings by Lurline.
Ozana though watched over more dangerous creatures and kinda left some of her duties over time while Ozma is hyper focused on trying to help (If it's actual help or not) everyone in Oz.
So I think their relationship would be, certainly very interesting afterwards. Because I doubt Ozma would just leave her be or Ozana would never visit. So seeing them talking and relating in ways they can't with others, and attempt to work on a sisterly bond for both people who really haven't had much of or either good family growing up.
It's very interesting to think about and could go many ways.
