The weirdest, most fever dream-like installment in the Oz series until we get to some of Ruth Plumly Thompson's books. I regarded this one as just "okay". It starts with Dorothy's psychadelic fall into the Earth with her cousin Zeb, and her kitten and his horse, who find during the prolonged fall that they can talk. The Wizard's entrance into the plot is contrived to say the least (what was he doing ballooning over the exact spot where Dorothy happened to be swallowed by the Earth in an earthquake?) The Wizard to me works best as a sleazy conman-type character, perhaps not outright villainous but definitely in it for himself. This book strips away that aspect of his character, presumably at the behest of Baum's young fans. Certainly it's good for an author to listen to their readers, but here is an example where doing so too much can be detrimental to a series. The retcon of the Wizard having kidnapped Ozma when she was a baby bugs me the most about it. This crucial part of Ozma's backstory from the second book now never happened, and Mombi did it all herself. How much more interesting would it have been to have just kept that canon and see how the Wizard and Ozma react to one another when they meet? My personal head-canon is that they both know what really happened and are choosing to sweep it under the rug by not bringing it up, leaving it as the elephant in the room; that's just how forgiving Princess Ozma is. Also, she knows the Wizard is far more useful to her alive.
"In Oz", not "Of Oz".
The weirdest, most fever dream-like installment in the Oz series until we get to some of Ruth Plumly Thompson's books. I regarded this one as just "okay". It starts with Dorothy's psychadelic fall into the Earth with her cousin Zeb, and her kitten and his horse, who find during the prolonged fall that they can talk. The Wizard's entrance into the plot is contrived to say the least (what was he doing ballooning over the exact spot where Dorothy happened to be swallowed by the Earth in an earthquake?) The Wizard to me works best as a sleazy conman-type character, perhaps not outright villainous but definitely in it for himself. This book strips away that aspect of his character, presumably at the behest of Baum's young fans. Certainly it's good for an author to listen to their readers, but here is an example where doing so too much can be detrimental to a series. The retcon of the Wizard having kidnapped Ozma when she was a baby bugs me the most about it. This crucial part of Ozma's backstory from the second book now never happened, and Mombi did it all herself. How much more interesting would it have been to have just kept that canon and see how the Wizard and Ozma react to one another when they meet? My personal head-canon is that they both know what really happened and are choosing to sweep it under the rug by not bringing it up, leaving it as the elephant in the room; that's just how forgiving Princess Ozma is. Also, she knows the Wizard is far more useful to her alive.