Oz

Jun. 25th, 2009 08:46 pm
anotheranon: (books)
[personal profile] anotheranon
No, not the show, the books. And the movie. And, I'm discovering, lots of the other stuff as well....

Let me explain. I was first hooked by the series as a kid back in the '70s-'80s. I remember that the classic movie was always aired once a year on network tv with much fanfare, and it was one of the times my sister and I commanded the tv. It's cute, it's fun, it has songs.

But the books were so much better! I can't remember when I read the first, but it was so much clearer that Dorothy was a little girl - a little girl (like I was at the time), but she had adventures. With her dog. To a kid, that sells it :)

Being an obsessive child I saved my allowance and got each successive one, though I remember them being hard to find. Big huge day when I finally found the last one.

I named my favorite doll Dorothy, and had some Barbie-size dolls of the characters from the movie. Later I made some of the series characters (I can only remember Sawhorse) myself, and additional clothes for the small dolls (my first sewing projects?). Biggest triumph was accompanying Dad to the workbench to make a life-size Jack Pumpkinhead that sat outside for many Halloweens (and in the living room most of the rest of the year).

And I grew up, and moved on. Rereading them now I have to admit they're definitely for kids, and rather schmaltzy.

But then someone told me about Wicked.

I'm finding that Oz is still everywhere. I only recently found out that "Wicked" had sequels??, and even the Muppets played in that universe. The purist kid I was would be horrified (I never bothered with ANYTHING but the original L. Frank Baum books, thankyewverramuch), but my adult self is amused and surprised at all the variations that continue to come out of that 100-year-old sandbox :)

Though I'm hanging on to my dogeared, mismatched set of the original 14, in a musty box pending actual shelf space.

What book or book series from your childhood casts a long shadow?

Date: 2009-06-27 01:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anotheranon.livejournal.com
Wow - didn't know there were that many Martian OR Conan novels (especially Conan - I only know the 2 movies with Ah-nold)! Re: the latter, it looks like L. Sprague de Camp wrote a number of them - loops back to Oz as he also played in the Oz sandbox in his "Compleat Enchanter" series.

Thanks for the tip re: Shanower! Not read any of his, but am on the lookout!

Date: 2009-06-27 01:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] folo1.livejournal.com
Oh, there were 11 Mars books (a couple were collections of short stories or novelets, and there were three Conan books that were 100% Howard. de Camp and Carter began the only Cionan industry and adapted many of REH's unpiublished stories into Conan and then wrote originals. They weren't anty good; neither were the other pastiches for the simple reason that the author needs to be totally bugfuck mad. Howard certainly was!

I love de Camp's other writings; I forgot that he dealt with Oz in the Compleat enchanter series though!

For information on Shanower's Oz books and the Oz annual, see http://www.hungrytigerpress.com/books/adventuresinoz.shtml

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