Re: Was Baum's Oz books a failure?

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:40:08 -0500, aalucard@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

>I was in a store and noticed 2 Baum Oz novels Emerald City and one
>other. Except for the wonderful movie and the novel Wicked which I
>believe only references the Wizard of Oz wouldn't this series be
>considered a failure?
>
>C.S. Lewis' Narnia series have been popular for a long time and sold in
>box sets for many years.
>
>Yet except for the movie Wizard of Oz I rarely see all the Oz novels
>(how many are there)


oodles. They are still being written, too. It's an early shared
world. They've been very popular under the radar, I gather. I've
certainly noticed them being in print more or less continuously for
approx 20 years.

I think they've been under the radar because librarians wouldn't give
them shelf space because series = bad.

>
>Maybe this novel series is a hidden gem and I should hunt for the
>novels. Anyone read this series to compare to other fantasy series. Also
>was this the first true fantasy series?

Possibly. I can't think of earlier series that ran more than two
volumes or so but I'm not up on the history of fantasy. Whether it's
a hidden gem, OTOH.... let's just say mileage varies. I know people
- adults and kids - who love the books, including our daughter. I was
delighted when she became good enough at reading to read them to
herself because I found them hard to take.
Fingernails-on-the-blackboard hard to take - something about Baum's
(and Thompson's) style doesn't sit well with me at all. When
daughter found an Oz book written by Eloise Jarvis McGraw I was
delighted: parts were still were irritating, butthe style didn't
grate, at least.

--
Elaine Thompson <Elaine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


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