Book Reviews: Suffering Sequels! (original) (raw)

A few more book reviews for this week:

The Enchantment of Oz, by Marin Elizabeth Xiques - When Gayelette accidentally releases a magic powder, it removes the magic from Oz, and most of the inhabitants totally forget where they are. The idea of everyone forgetting is sort of similar to The Wishing Horse of Oz, but it's developed differently. Polychrome, Jinnicky, Lulea, and Queen Zixi of Ix all show up to help the sorceress. There's also a brief episode with the gods of Mount Olympus, following up on their appearances in Lurline and the White Ravens and Crocheted Cat. I know some fans aren't too keen on classical deities appearing in Oz stories, either because it's not really in the spirit of Baum, or because they see it as promoting a particular religion. I can see the first one, but the second not so much. Then again, I'm saying this as someone with no religion. Anyway, I have to say I don't mind the Greek gods interacting with Oz, as long as they don't take over the story, which they don't in this book. In fact, being a fan of both, it's a pretty cool crossover.

A Foolish Fable from Oz, by Marin Elizabeth Xiques and Chris Dulabone - An adventure that takes place back in the time of the Wicked Witches, a few years before Dorothy's arrival. The Wicked Witch of the East has lost the Silver Shoes, and is also seeking some ivory for a spell. This results in her capturing a few elephants from the Nonestic Isle of Kenra who are journeying to Oz in the company of some Orks, and some animals from the Lunechien Forest have to help save them from the Witch's monster-filled castle. Overall, it's a fairly comical tale, complete with mitten-making goats, a troll with a princess for a wife, a thieving hillbilly rat, and cartoonish confrontations with dimwitted ogres. The names of the Wicked Witches of the East and West are given as Gingemma Inky Madge Ugnat Antonifurrpio and Bastinda Slinky Myrna Krisantasia Evillene Allidap, respectively. I know Gingemma and Bastinda come from the Russian Magic Land books, Evillene from The Wiz, and Allidap from the Wiz Kids of Oz books (named after their teacher, Mr. Padilla), but I'm not sure about the other names. I can't say I understand Chris's insistence that Oz is bigger than the United States, which really doesn't fit with the travel times in any of the canonical books, but fortunately this doesn't really affect the plot.

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde - Hey, here's one that isn't an Oz book, even though there IS a brief mention of Dorothy and the tornado! This is the fifth book in the Thursday Next series, and it's a bit of a departure, since it begins some years after the last one. Thursday is now raising a family, and her work in SpecOps is done under cover of a carpet company. Since she's a minor celebrity who has books written about her, her trips to the BookWorld include encounters with two written versions of herself. There's a fair amount of self-reference in this one, as well as humorous explanations for the decline in book reading and popularity of reality television. Possibly my favorite of the series so far.