To the Cosmic with My Ozmic Ray! (original) (raw)

I’ve always been interested in how L. Frank Baum introduced science fiction elements in the Oz books, and his successors followed suit to a certain extent. I don’t recall any directed energy weapons in Baum’s Oz books, although The Master Key does have a tube that that can render a person unconscious for an hour with an electrical charge. Ruth Plumly Thompson does bring a sci-fi type of ray into the Oz universe in Speedy in Oz, specifically an invention of the wizard Waddy of Umbrella Island. Speedy takes it from Waddy’s laboratory because he thinks it’s a flashlight, but upon learning it can cut through iron, he uses it to destroy King Radj of Roaraway’s water cannon. It’s said to make “a loud, clattering noise” as it cuts through the chains holding the water gun to a stone. The wizard calls the device a “metal melting flash,” but when I read the book I was struck by its similarity to a laser. Of course, lasers didn’t actually exist in 1934 when the book came out.

Another laser-like device appears in John R. Neill’s Oz books, where it’s one of the inventions of the Wizard of Oz. Known as the Ozmic Ray, its name is obviously a reference to cosmic rays, which aren’t actually rays at all. Rather, they’re high energy particles from outer space. The Ozmic Ray is described as a long tube, which the Wizard connects to his Teletable, a machine for finding lost people and objects. It creates a “golden beam of light” that melts the chocolate general who lives on a chocolate star and the prison where he has Scraps and Jack Pumpkinhead locked up. The two freed prisoners then slide down the beam like a banister, something I don’t think you could do with a laser. The term “Ozmic Ray” is used in Neill’s next two books, but they aren’t consistent as to what it actually is. In Scalawagons, Number Nine finds such a ray, but here it’s “a short line of light not coming from anywhere” (which means it’s not actually a ray). He tries to capture it to take home to his family, but it evades him. And in Lucky Bucky, the Ozmic Ray is part of the Tattlescope.

I suppose such rays could have several different applications, just as lasers do nowadays.

This entry was posted in John R. Neill, L. Frank Baum, Magic Items, Oz, Oz Authors, Ruth Plumly Thompson, Science, Technology and tagged jack pumpkinhead, lasers, lucky bucky in oz, number nine, ozmic ray, patchwork girl, ray guns, speedy, speedy in oz, tattlescope, teletable, the master key, the scalawagons of oz, the wonder city of oz, waddy, wizard of oz. Bookmark the permalink.