“Miss Jennie is Mostly a… Well, Being a Christian Oz author I just can’t say it”

NOTE: Autocorrect sometimes changes some blogpost text on smartphones to make it appear it has errors even after text has been saved correctly.

A Review of a Fantasy Book, Stolen to Oz: Toto and Miss Jennie in Oz (without Dorothy), Which is Mostly a Parody Yet an Oz book bridge

By: Ron Baxley, Jr. Four Stars (****)

“There are laws protecting folks against dogs that bite,” the character Miss Gulch states in M.G.M.’s 1939 “The Wizard of Oz”. Also, there are laws protecting parodies against corporations that bite, which is good because this fantasy book contains many parodies of the film from which I just quoted. Within the aforementioned film, Aunt Em states, “How would it be if she keeps him (Toto) tied up? He’s very gentle… with gentle people, that is.” In fact, author Alan Lindsay does tie in many parodies and even ties in Toto in a new story in his recently released book. Toto gets to bite another non-gentle person this time!

Stolen to Oz: Toto and Miss Jennie in Oz (without Dorothy) has a character Miss Jennie Grierson, who parodies Miss Gulch, as an owner of a large plantation in Wamego, Kansas. Next, the book introduces a character Doctor Fiddledog, a snake oil salesman and entertainer who parodies Professor Marvel and perhaps O.Z. Diggs / the Wizard of Oz himself. Presumably after Dorothy’s return from Oz, Miss Grierson, after dognapping Toto and putting him in a basket on her bicycle, literally runs into Doctor Fiddledog’s snake oil wagon and eventually becomes entangled, if you will, in a plot with him that involves O.Z. Diggs’/the Wizard of Oz’s balloon and their going to Oz. I will leave how the balloon ended up in Wamego, Kansas to the reader and just how the balloon ends up in Oz too as well. There is an entire, interesting mysterious sub-plot about it with the Scarecrow, Tinman (not Tin Woodman in this book), and Cowardly Lion.

Unlike Miss Gulch in the M.G.M. film, parody character Miss Jennie Grierson is given an excellent tragic back-story which makes her only mostly a figurative witch and more of a sympathetic character. Miss Grierson, unlike the seemingly completely alone spinster Miss Gulch, is also given a niece, Claire, whose aspirations for art school have been figuratively squashed like the Wicked Witch of the East by Miss Grierson. Unlike Professor Marvel, Doctor Fiddledog just alludes to O.Z. Diggs a little. He is a bit of a humbug, though. His Dickensian name alludes to his actually fiddling and I think his having an affinity for Toto.

When the main characters arrive in Oz at a mysterious yet familiar dark castle after the hot air balloon they end up in gets hung up in a tree but then lost, Miss Grierson and Doctor Fiddledog do not care for each other very much at first. With Toto’s help, they navigate the strange country in which they have landed and cooperate. One cooperative move is having Miss Grierson ring chickens’ necks for dinner while Doctor Fiddledog does the cooking. This would probably make later-series-book arriver Billina the hen faint (lunch-box trees and vegetarian options in Baum's books seem to contrast this killing of animals, yet this adds rural realism to the fantasy from the Kansas visitors). Next, Toto only barks and leads them to places and does not talk to the characters there (which Baum stated Toto could opt to do after only teasing Dorothy by not speaking like other Oz animals in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). Winkie Guards and Winged Monkeys, in possession of the Golden Cap which controls them, soon make an appearance, pointing out with their physical presence just who once owned the place. The Winged Monkeys do not appear to speak at first but later reveal that they did not speak because no one spoke directly to them. They also provide comic relief.

Within what the main characters eventually discover is Winkie Country, a crabby tree growing near the dark castle ends up being more of a multiple fruit tree and a hybrid of the ominous, talking trees from Quadling Country that blocked Dorothy and friends from continuing to Glinda’s castle and a parody of the talking M.G.M. apple trees. Dr. Fiddledog helps the near-dying crabby tree get water, the scarcity of which in the castle is their first clue as to its ownership. I enjoy grumpy characters and found the crabby tree to be most entertaining. He is a talking tree trope of sorts but one who is in a long line of quasi-helpful side-kicks of deceased evil beings who turn to good just out of convenience. A lot more than this occurs in the narrative, and this book will serve as a good bridge for children and youth and adult Oz fans who are more familiar with the M.G.M. film to books of L. Frank Baum. The golden cap for the Winged Monkey and its attributions, the true color of the magic shoes, the color coding of the countries of Oz, the settings of the Emerald City and Munchkin Country (as depicted in the books), and other aspects will point the way to them from the film it parodies at times to Baum’s books.

I enjoyed one particular character arc in the book and enjoyed the many parodies of the M.G.M. film and the references to the Baum books, but what I did not enjoy was the anti-climatic ending of one main character. Also, at 109 pages with really just a start at page 11, the 87 page fantasy fiction novel is more of a novella and might be better priced lower than even $10 ($9.99). However, the illustrations by experienced Oz illustrator Dennis Anfuso make it even more worth it.  The cover and interior illustrations by Anfuso are in a sketchy style similar to that of Quentin Blake but distinctively Anfuso-ian with his eye for the details which classic Oz illustrators such as Denslow and Neill saw in Baum’s characters. The Scarecrow is sufficiently lop-sided with the painted-on face, the Cowardly Lion has that one bow and soulful expression, and the Tin Man (not Tin Woodman in this case) is nicely cylindrical yet kind looking. The Flying Monkey leader has a golden cap drawn just as it was described or drawn in the Baum books yet has Anfuso’s flair for realism when it comes to animals. Toto has a warm expression and also shares this flair. The other characters are combinations of parodies and Baum facets.

This book’s length is remedied by the great illustrations, yet the anti-climatic ending with one main character cannot be overlooked by me like a few errors can be (we all have a couple of those). Nevertheless, the parodies of M.G.M. characters and the bridging of the film to the Baum books in this book is quite an accomplishment and makes for a good, quick read for novices of Oz and those who wish to remember what it was like to be full of wonder like them. You may not want to put this book up… PUT IT UP! (Sorry… I couldn’t resist.)  

“I dreamed, that games would never die…”: a Review of _Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings_

Review By: Ron Baxley, Jr., published fantasy and science fiction author 

As Roberta Williams would have perhaps done via an Easter Egg or Al Lowe or the Two Guys from Andromeda would have done as a straight parody, I must preface my review:

“I dreamed a dream in games I did buy
When cash was high with games worth playing
I dreamed, that games would never die
I dreamed God would keep me adventuring
Then I was young and often played
And dreams of making games were used and wasted
There were many bills to be paid
No games created, but novels vetted.”

Adventure gaming did basically die for quite some time, and its partial eulogy is laid out in Ken Williams’  Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings . He shows how Sierra Online was so much more than an adventure game company, but I was an avid buyer and player of that gaming genre, so my focus tends to be more on those. In the 80s and early 90s, Electronics Boutique and Radio Shack were used to seeing me around birthdays or holidays, and I had an extensive collection of “quest” games. In fact, I wanted to go more into computer graphics and use my past programming skills and writing skills as an adventure game designer at one point. My father pushed me more into computer programming itself, but I was always using graphics programs and game creation engines to make my own games. I wrote a research paper my senior year in high school on adventure gaming and even the future of it, focusing mostly on Sierra On-line and using periodicals from the nearest branch of the University of South Carolina. At the start of university, I did fairly well with programming but not calculus and other requirements. I did learn to do some rudimentary programming in a Multi-user Dungeon within the early 90s and remembered early forms of email and the starts of the Internet. Eventually, I moved from computer science to English and had many publications, including novels. Even recently, though, I created an interactive story for the Choice of Games company with adventure game facets. 

Therefore, what I liked most about Williams’ book was the insider background on Roberta Williams and others at the company creating games and what that culture was like. Seeing Roberta’s methods at work were intriguing to me. Not liking the last Sierra-produced King’s Quest particularly, I could understand her frustration when the corporate culture that had taken over did not listen to her about the divergent 3-D King’s Quest. I always identified more with Mrs. Williams because I had some programming background as she did, but my heart was in creativity and storytelling. Seeing how she always stuck up for what she wanted in the company in the face of investors – even when it was sold – made me admire her even more.  

Next, what I liked second best about his book was Williams showed who he admired and tried his best to emulate, including Walt Disney and Bill Gates. I am a life-long Disney fan and have a love of the parks and Disney films. When Williams stated that he was trying to make consumers feel like family and a part of something larger and that he got that from the early Disney methods, I knew just what he meant. Having grown up with Bill Gates’ products from MS-DOS on forward, I did have an admiration for him as well and understood how having a somewhat harsh, expert taskmaster at the helm of an enterprise is something one might want to follow in business. As a side note, William’s love of the early Apple computer company and what they did with that company made me very nostalgic. My late father was a techie and started my sister and I as children on an Apple IIe and a Texas Instruments computer before that. The screen captures from the Apple and the discussions of early games for it almost brought a tear to my eye.

Finally, what I enjoyed the least but still found intriguing were the ins and outs of the corporate buy-outs as that was the most tragic part of the book and also the most business-oriented. However, as with the “Disney War” book I read quite a few years ago and other comparable books, when a company I am interested in is involved, I pay more attention. For Williams to keep me reading through the entire book when it was focused a good bit on business at times is a testament to his ability to make business details into a good narrative.

I highly recommend this book to any adventure gamer who does not mind business details, wants to see what made the leadership of Sierra On-line tick, who is a fan of Roberta Williams and other game designers at Sierra On-line, and who also likes insider information about the growth and decline of a computer software company.

Five Stars (*****)