Out of Oz

Probably you know about Wicked by now. It all started in 1995 when novelist Gregory Maguire released Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. This book provided a bold new re-imagining of Oz as a darker and grittier and much less magical land. Cultural prejudice abounds, and the Wizard is far from Baum's warm and friendly Oscar Diggs. Enter Elphaba Thropp, the child of an affair, mysteriously born with green skin. She will later attend Shiz University with her sister Nessarose and Galinda Upland. Through their lives and endeavors, they wind up becoming the "Wicked Witch of the West," the "Wicked Witch of the East," and Glinda the Good.

Wicked met a mixed reception by Oz fans. Some loved it, some hated it. Others were indifferent. Later, the novel was loosely adapted into a very successful stage musical, and soon, Maguire brought out a sequel, Son of a Witch in 2005. The novel further explored this revisionist Oz after the events we know from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz through the eyes of Elphaba's illegitimate son, Liir. 2008 brought A Lion Among Men, in which Maguire offers the story of his Cowardly Lion, named Brr (after Bert Lahr).

The series got named The Wicked Years, and a fourth (and intended to be final) book was announced: Out of Oz. And it was released early this month.

Me, I didn't like Wicked, and it took some time before I decided to try Son of a Witch. For some reason, I liked it. However, I didn't find A Lion Among Men so interesting. So I was completely unsure of what I'd think of Out of Oz, which was the first Maguire book I bought new.

Munchkinland is at war with the other sections of Oz, "Loyal Oz" in Maguire's revisionist take, refusing to be under the government of Shell Thropp, the current Emperor in the Emerald City.

Lady Glinda (she's not big on doing magic) is under house arrest along with her staff, including a little girl named Rain. Rain becomes a point of attention for General Cherrystone, who begins to teach her how to read. Glinda is suspicious of his attention, and soon suspects he wants Rain to read the Grimmerie, which winds up in her care when they are allowed to see the Clock of the Time Dragon. Eventually, the pressure gets to be too much for Glinda, and when the Clock of the Time Dragon returns, she gives them the Grimmerie and turns Rain over to the company.

Rain gets the most attention in Out of Oz and it's soon no secret that she is Elphaba's granddaughter. She rejoins her parents, and even gets to attend school, where she begins to be enamored with a boy named Tip. (People who've read The Marvelous Land of Oz can guess that won't end well...)

Dorothy winds up back in Oz after an accident on a trip to California while she's in a lift with Toto. After she recovers, she is put on trial for the deaths of Nessarose and Elphaba by the Munchkinlanders, who are set on a guilty verdict and also execution to boost the public morale.

I guess my favorite character in The Wicked Years is Liir, since I was also pretty glad we got to follow him and his wife Candle for a bit.

Out of Oz moves along slowly, though there are signs that things are coming to a head. Maguire, however, isn't one to be fast-paced, and when something catastrophic does happen, he still takes his time.

Surprisingly, overall, I liked Out of Oz. It provides a relatively happy ending for a gritty, somber take on Oz. There are still some threads left hanging, but apparently, Maguire has elected to leave these that way.

Maguire also throws in some humor for Oz fans. Dorothy's trial was originally set to be in a place called "Densloe Den," but when they fear it will be too small for the expected crowd, they go to "Neale Hall." A few sly nods to other books in the Famous Forty creep in as well. There's also talk of people dressing up as Dorothy, such as entertainers and even male escorts who might pull it off so convincingly, they may be mistaken for her.

Would I recommend Out of Oz? It depends on you. If you've gotten through A Lion Among Men, definitely. If you decided you didn't like Wicked and wouldn't read anymore, then that book stands on its own well enough.

So, thanks for an intriguing take on Oz, Mr. Maguire. We'll see you again when Oz pulls you back.

(Almost) Weekly Update

I didn't do an update last week, and I don't think I did one the week before either, so I decided that I was going to try to put one together for this week.

Our friends at "L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" have released some new footage as Jared mentioned in one of his blogs. They've also added new VFX test stills, among other things to their website. You can check out all of that good stuff and more on the official website.

Summertime Entertainment's 3D kid's flick "Dorothy of Oz" will be released in U.S. theaters on August 3rd, 2012, according to branding associate Travis Rutherford. "Dorothy of Oz" will compete with "The Bourne Legacy" and "Total Recall" at the box office during its opening weekend.

A few more stills from the yet to be released theatrical version of "The Witches of Oz", titled "Dorothy and the Witches of Oz", have been released on the film's official Twitter page. "Dorothy and the Witches of Oz" was completed over the summer over at Palace/Imaginarium, and a U.S. release date has not been announced.

Some pretty cool developments have been made in the super-secret project that I mentioned in my last update. Hopefully, we'll be able to make an announcement on that in the next few weeks. Wish I was allowed to say more!

The previously reported Bruce Campbell cameo in Disney's "Oz, the Great and Powerful" has been cut from the film, Campbell announced on Twitter earlier today. Read more about that here.

That's all for now. Hopefully Disney will release some stills or footage from "Oz, the Great and Powerful" soon! Enjoy your weekend and have a happy Veteran's Day.

Books of Wonder's Oz reprints

If you've been reading David Maxine's Oz blog along with mine (and if you haven't, why not?), you'll see he and his partner Eric Shanower have stuck with the Bradford Exchange's editions of reprints of the Oz books. If you've read his blogs, you know why I say "reprint." (If only the Bradford Exchange would say that.)

Anyway, in the comments and even the blogs themselves, you might have noticed mentions of Books of Wonder's editions of the Oz books. Since these editions are still very much available, it might seem odd to talk about them, especially as most Oz fans own a set.

This series began in 1985 with a reprint of The Marvelous Land of Oz utilizing all the color plates of the original edition as well as reproductions of the original pages, changes being made to the copyright page, title page, and spine to indicate the actual publisher. William Morrow did the actual publishing of the book, putting a book just about every bit as handsome as the original edition out in the wide open book market.

Other changes were made as well. The original endpapers showed an image of the Woggle-Bug, Tip, and Jack Pumpkinhead cheering as the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman rode in a wagon being pulled by the Sawhorse, except instead of Neill artwork for the two in the wagon, photographs of Fred Stone and David Montgomery (who played them in the original Oz musical) in full costume were used instead. This also required a slight redesign of the title page, as the original mentioned the endpapers. In addition, a new dustjacket was designed.

Overall, fans were not fussed about these changes. Having such a high quality edition was enough. In 1987, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz appeared, also in a faithful reproduction of the first edition (with alterations for it being as different publisher) without any artwork dropped. (Rather than a photo-facsimile, it seems some color elements were re-done, however, the method of doing these was faithful to the original's design.)

From that time on to the year 2000, all fourteen of Baum's novels were treated to such editions. Also, Little Wizard Stories of Oz was reprinted. The Road to Oz was printed on colored paper, just like the original edition, though I've heard some say the coloring of the paper and the placement isn't exactly the same. In The Emerald City of Oz, the original color plates had been embellished with metallic green ink. Since this proved too costly for Books of Wonder to replicate, green ink with gold glitter was utilized instead.

Controversially, The Patchwork Girl of Oz saw a couple text edits and an illustration dropped in light of politically correct sensibilities. As the Books of Wonder editions were not actually facsimiles (though it seems their marketing people screwed up a bit), these changes can be overlooked, especially as other editions without the edits remain. However, no mention of the alteration is in the book. Eric Gjovaag goes into this controversy in greater detail in this online column.

Rinkitink in Oz also saw an illustration dropped, but this time, it was noted on the copyright page.

Because the Books of Wonder/William Morrow (now Harper Collins) editions have been going for over 25 years, there have been some changes. Early versions used textured boards to simulate the original cloth binding. At some point (possibly when Harper Collins took over), this was dropped and slick case-bound covers (with all the images in the appropriate colors) were used instead. (This change caused their Ozma of Oz to become thicker. I've seen both versions.)

It's also worth noting that the dustjackets were not always replicas of the originals. Now, they use a stylized design on the spine, and the original dustjacket designs of the first three books were not used at all. (Their edition of The Road to Oz was the first to use a gold background on the dustjacket image since the original editions. Reilly & Britton had dropped and changed it after a time.) In addition, Peter Glassman provided an afterword to all the books, except Tik-Tok of Oz where a small note appeared in the front matter. Also, listings of other Books of Wonder titles may be seen.

In 2000, along with Glinda of Oz's release, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was re-released by Book of Wonder and Harper Collins in a centennial edition, this time made taller to match the later Oz books as well as a new dustjacket design. This version also used a textured cover.

Overall, Books of Wonder did a wonderful job reprinting the Oz books. The text is still easy to read and the illustrations are printed clearly. To be sure, I recently scanned an image from one of their Marvelous Land color plates at a high dpi and zooming in, it quickly broke up into dots and pixels. Given the changes in printing technology (we still use three color printing, but our means of printing it have changed), this is understandable, and it looks just fine in print to the naked eye. (It might also be a way to prevent people from pirating their restoration work.)

If you're not interested in (or feel you could care for) a set of first or early edition Oz books, Books of Wonder is your best choice. Given the noted changes, though, there is yet a market for "exact replicas" of the original editions, but that void has yet to be filled.

Fairyland Indus Trees, Inc.

I was wondering recently about how industry works in Oz. While I would imagine many functions are fulfilled by small businesses and magical trees, there is the occasional mention of a factory. The Scalwagons are produced in a factory that the Wizard of Oz set up on Carrot Mountain. There's a jam factory in the Hidden Valley in...well, The Hidden Valley of Oz. In Merry Go Round, Roundabout has factories that make round objects, which are always perfect and never wear out. They'll have no truck with planned obsolescence in that city. And in Yankee, the Kingdom of Wackajammy has several factories that produce baked goods. Note that these are all from the forties or afterwards, as if that was the point when writers could no longer imagine an Oz without a manufacturing industry. Did any factories appear in earlier Oz books? I know there's a mention of a pickle factory in Purple Prince, but we don't actually see such a place. Besides, I would imagine that pickles grow on trees in at least some parts of the fairyland. Anyway, there are some factories in outlying parts of Oz, but does the Emerald City have any? I would guess offhand that it doesn't. Even though Ozian factories might well not pollute as much as their Outside World counterparts, they'd probably still be rather distracting to find in an idyllic city. But what about a power station or a waterworks? I mean, the city has to get these utilities from somewhere, right? Or does some sort of magic take care of all that? It's an interesting thing to think about, and maybe something that should be addressed in a future Oz story. Actually, my wife, who sometimes likes to come up with weird hypothetical titles, once proposed "Terry Carruthers and the Water Filtration System of Oz." Not sure where she got "Terry Carruthers," but apparently there's a boxer with that name.

And since I'm writing about industries in the Oz books, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Indus Tree in Down Town, a community beneath the surface of the Land of Ev visited in Hungry Tiger. Down Town is positively obsessed with money, and the Indus Tree is an enormous plant that grows in the public square, where people can pick various objections for their professions. Carter Green picks a wheelbarrow from this tree, and Prince Evered a sword. I suppose the profession for which you'd need a sword is a soldier, but I don't know that Down Town has a military force. If we could only grow trees like this in the Outside World, it would definitely cut down on the costs of starting a business. I tend to doubt it's been upgraded to grow computer terminals as of yet, though.

Writing Oz: What not to do

My editor has pestered me to write blogs about how I wrote Outsiders from Oz. My intent is to wait for this until the book is available. I hope that will be soon, but until then, I'll tease you with a few things I learned not to do.

Don't overwrite
Unless your story requires it, a lot of exposition is not encouraged. In the first draft of Outsiders, I spent many paragraphs talking about Jellia Jamb. None of what I wrote was bad or anything, but it was all eliminated in the final version. In fact, I'd rewritten the first chapter from scratch.

The reason why was because Jellia only appears briefly in the book. This was always the intention for the story, so why spend so much time on a character who isn't in the book for very long? Jellia does get a brief introduction, but that's the key: it's brief.

Exposition should be kept on a strictly need-to-know basis. Of course, I also advise against breaking the momentum of a scene for exposition. I set up a little mystery for the characters in Outsiders, though I'm very sure my readers will piece it together quickly since they get both sides of the story. By the time the story came to the conclusion, everything was ready for a fast paced finale.

Don't drag your story out
While you want your story to fill a good number of pages, if you find yourself slipping in visits to Buxleyburg or Whoozywoozyville for no purpose than to make the story longer, it might be better to reconsider how long you need your story to be. I had intended for Outsiders to be 20 chapters, like most of Thompson's books, but wound up being 16.

If you find yourself adding in filler material, try to rework it to work with the plot. Since Outsiders follows two separate parties for a large portion of the book, I found myself needing to fill some time between when the two parties would meet up. So, I came up with an additional episode that would introduce a new little creature to Oz's zoology. However, I wound up making them part of the story's conclusion.

And that was much better than the original version of that chapter where they literally sat and talked around a campfire. That was just too tonally different from the rest of the story.

Don't throw in everyone
We all have favorite Oz characters, and when you write an Oz story, it's almost a no-brainer to grab from that list of characters. However, this can easily become a difficulty: once you have a character in, what are they going to do?

There is one character in Outsiders that I wonder if people will mention when they review or comment on the book. He is one of the main characters and one of the most-loved, but even I had to look at him at the end and realize he didn't do much. However, considering what I'd already written, I could neither drop him or expand his role in ways that wouldn't feel out-of-character or absurd.

One Baum case of too many characters I remember quite well is in Glinda of Oz. Many, many characters go to the island of the Skeezers to rescue Dorothy and Ozma, but it could easily have been pared down to just the Wizard, Glinda, the Scarecrow and Scraps. Another case is having all three formerly American girls in Dorothy's search party in The Lost Princess of Oz. While this was Baum's intention to have an adventure with these three and Scraps, the girls don't have much of a chance to do much with all of their companions and Dorothy's magic belt.

So, yes. Consider your plot and which characters work best for your story. Also, remember that a common occurrence in Oz books is new characters. In addition to keeping the old characters in character (and build on, if that's what you're going for), you now have new ones to develop. Less characters allows you more room to have your characters grow. That's not to say you can't have cameos, but these should also be worked in relevant ways to the plot.

In Outsiders, I chose against creating many new characters, considering the number of Baum characters I was already using. There are a few new ones, but I spent more time focusing on developing the characters established by Baum, some of them not having appeared in new adventures in over a century. At the end of the book, there are a few cameos, including Betsy and Trot, and a couple other who I don't say who they are. (All in good time.)

More web building in Oz

Well, tonight we attempted two things in getting the new website live.

First, we attempted to ensure Drupal (our web building software) and MediaWiki (our Wiki software) could be bridged so users could use a single login. It didn't work.

Second, we attempted to move the forums. While the order I had set up for it broke, I thought, "No matter, we can reorganize."

But then I noticed almost all the posts said "Anonymous."

Roll back the web site...

Well, we know what didn't work... We'll try again soon.

Jared: We should use our new Oz logo for the wiki logo.
Tech guy: The newer one?
Jared: Yeah, the one we're using on the new site.
Tech guy: Isn't there another Oz wiki with an eerily similar logo? Just wondering.
Jared: Yeah, but forget 'em. OZ IS OURS.
Tech guy: That's right.
Jared: I sound like the Nome King. Which makes you General Guph.
Tech guy: Whatever man, you're not getting my diamond forest.

MECO's The Wizard of Oz

You ever listen to the MGM movie's score and think, "this needs a disco rearrangement?"

... Anyone?

Okay, well, it happened in 1978. The band MECO, famous for their Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk album gave a similar treatment to Oz.

The album has only been released in entirety on vinyl LP records. Which, if you're from a later generation than me, those are those big, flat black discs with grooves on them a needle replays the sounds from it while a turntable spun it around at the right speed. (My dad had SO many records...)

So, how's the album? Well, if you hate how this sounds, then I wouldn't recommend it:

Now, if you stuck around after that, I'll say this: I loved it.

Since the running time is only about a half hour, the entire score is not represented. Every song is not sung, for example, as in the above sample, "Over the Rainbow" is only an instrumental. The only songs sung are "It Really Was No Miracle," "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead!," "You're Off To See The Wizard" (preceded by Munchkin voices saying "Follow the Yellow Brick Road," but it's not sung), and "Optimistic Voices."

There's voice acting as well. The only bits of dialogue is from the Wicked Witch, the Wizard, and the Cowardly Lion, aside from those Munchkin voices and Toto barking. In addition, just before the Lion has his first lines, we hear the classic "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" Also, the Winkie guards are heard singing their iconic chant, though I think they got it wrong. It's "O-Ee-Yah! Eoh-Ah!" but here it sounds like "O-Ee-Yum! Ee-Oh-Um!" (And when you note THAT error, you know you're an Oz fan.)

The album also doesn't forget it's in stereo. There's a number of stereophonic effects, most notably alternating beats in the cyclone, but the most effective is in the first track when we hear the Wicked Witch cackle. It begins in the right audio channel, then moves over to the left, then back again, creating the audio impression that the Witch is flying back and forth on her broom.

As for the music itself, it's very lively and fun to listen to. The themes are still quite recognizable, so only people who don't enjoy this type of music should find it objectionable. While "If I Only Had A ___" is not anywhere on the album, the music moves so lively that you don't miss it. I particularly enjoy the lively Emerald City beat headlined by "Optimistic Voices" just after the mellow Poppy Field themes. And "If I Were King of the Forest" is part of the Wicked Witch's demise as a triumphant beat following a reprise of "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead!"

The best part is at the very end, when there's an upbeat medley of the score's highlights, this time not in disco. It's really a lovely bit and very Ozzy as well!

So, go ahead and buy the album. There's plenty for sale on eBay last I checked. There's a version that used yellow vinyl instead of black (yellow brick road), and no, that's not what I own.

And whoever owns the rights to this, GET THE WHOLE THING BACK OUT THERE!!!

The Seven Blue Mountains of Oz: Zim Greenleaf of Oz

And so, in 2005, The Seven Blue Mountains of Oz trilogy was finally completed. Melody Grandy, for reasons of her own, had left it rather unfinished, so a few writers who'd written for Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends took silent credit and polished it off for publication. Melody did do a final edit, though. The handful of her completed illustrations were supplemented with new art by Luciano Vecchio and Marcus Mebes.

Now that Zim is known throughout Oz, he has some things to take care of as Wizard of Munchkinland. First off is helping Orlando recover his mother and step-father from Herku, then settle the giants of Huge Mountain as Orlando takes leadership of them.

Also, Thorns and Private Files of Oz gets its wrap up with a twist you didn't see coming, and neither did Zim, which gives a new perspective to his character.

Later, Zim attempts an experiment, but ends up putting a lot of trouble into the Wizard of Oz's hands: he splits into 31 pint-sized versions of himself, each a personification of one of Zim's traits, some he's kept subdued, including Love and Cruelty. While this might seem like a cartoon plot, it's a lot of fun to read, especially considering the trouble the Wizard and the Emerald City folk have containing Zim's traits, much less finding a way to get him put back together!

But get back together Zim does (though I'm not telling you how, you'd figure out that happens just by looking at the table of contents) and resumes his duties. He investigates a giant who makes people play a board game called the Battle of Kipo until they win.

Zim and Tippetarius visit Zim's great-grandmother in Tir Na n'Og, where Zim must defeat the Black Druid, who has been terrorizing the faeries who live there. And then, Zim finally answers summons from Tititi-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin.

And also a couple final loose ends of the trilogy are tied up, but I'm not saying how. You should really just read these for yourself.

While Zim Greenleaf of Oz answers many questions, that turns out to be its major weakness: an answer is never as interesting as a question. However, since we were following these questions for two or three books (if you count Thorns and Private Files in Oz), we do want to see these answered, so it makes for a good read.

The illustrations vary quite a bit in style, all being wonderful in their own respects, but as the designs of the characters stay the same, it doesn't disorient the reader.

So, yes, if you've read the other two books (and Thorns and Private Files), by all means, pick up Zim Greenleaf of Oz.

Web building in Oz

Well, we are officially working out some of the finer details of the new version of The Royal Website of Oz. The big thing here is localizing everything. The new forum will be imported in, meaning all users will still have their login, but it'll work for the whole site. The Wiki will be not be made a part of it, but it is hosted on the same server and domain, and we'll be setting it up so the site login will also work for the wiki. (I've instructed the tech guy that if we have any conflicts with forum and wiki user accounts, the forum login dominates.)

Unlike my previous builds of the site, this one is different in that users can add content to the site. We have sections so users can add fan fiction, write blogs, and upload images in galleries, as well as post on the forum, edit the wiki and use our new IRC-powered chat box, all with one login.

I never got the library going on the last version of the site. I was set on making PDFs, but I discovered that free-flowing text in HTML would be better. Now to convert all to that format... We would like to make the library better by expanding the scope to all public domain works by the Famous Forty authors. This will require a later launch, though.

Assuming all the details and the forum import get worked out smoothly, we should be launching this weekend!

Down and Out with Uncle Henry

Recently, J.L. Bell wrote about Dorothy's Uncle Henry's financial trouble, as detailed in The Emerald City of Oz. Beth has told me that she didn't find a poor farmer like Uncle Henry taking a vacation to Australia to be realistic, and Emerald City at least tries to explain that, by saying it was on doctor's orders. Ozma does give a few other indications that Henry was a little more free with his money than he was before, however. There's a mention toward the end of the farm having "hired men and teams," while Wizard gave the impression that Henry could not have afforded employees if he'd wanted them. The "hired men" played a major role in the MGM movie, but the film portrayed a much larger farm than the books imply. Also, the farmhouse that was blown to Oz by the tornado had only one room, while the new one has a separate room for Dorothy in the attic. We're not talking about huge improvements here, but the mortgage apparently provided enough to slightly improve conditions and hire a few workers when Henry was out of the country.

As John indicated in his post, Uncle Henry's plight is hardly a thing of the past, with plenty of people still struggling to make ends meet and pay their debts. And while some people do make poor choices with their money, a lot of time this kind of thing is not the poor person's fault. L. Frank Baum alerts people to the problem without offering a viable solution, although I guess the bankers being more forgiving would be a step in the right direction. Only in fiction can someone escape his debt by relocating to a fairy country, and even then it probably wouldn't have happened if Henry's niece hadn't been the best friend of a fairy princess.