In 1915, one year after Tik-Tok of Oz Baum released the ninth Oz book, The Scarecrow of Oz.

This book features two new characters to Oz, Cap’n Bill and Trot. Both of these characters previously appeared in the Baum non-Oz works The Sea Fairies (1911) and Sky Island (1912).  Bill and Trot set sail from California for a short ride in their row boat.  A storm suddenly appears and the duo find themselves in a fairy land (but not Oz, just yet).  Bill and Trot find their way to the land of Mo, which previously appeared in the non-Oz book; The Magical Monarch of Mo.  As you can see, Baum started to fold his previous non-Oz characters and lands into his Oz books when it was clear no one wanted to read anything but the Oz books.  It makes these later books interesting in that almost every character and land had appeared in a previous non-Oz book.

Anyway, Bill and Trot run into Button-Bright in the land of Mo.  Button previously appeared in not only the Oz books but in Bill and Trot’s last book, Sky Island.  So the group makes their way to Jinxland.  Jinxland is sort of a “sister” land to Oz.  It’s found on the same continent but divided by a nearly impassable mountain range.  Anyway, our heroes get tangled up in the drama of the King of Jinxland, his daughter, the gardener she loves and a royal suitor she doesn’t.  The scarecrow shows up to help and all is set right with the world.

I honestly am not sure why this book is named after the Scarecrow.  He only shows up at the very end, but he does help save the day.  Truthfully, I was a little disappointed in the story.   The characters were good.  I liked Bill and Trot, I even enjoyed Button-Bright more than I did in previous books.  I just was a bit let down by the entire story.  I’m hoping I’m not getting “Oz fatigue”.  Since Bill and Trot appear here and in the two previous books, I may wind up reading, at the very least, Sky Island.  Sky Island also features Button-Bright, like I said, and Polychrome, the Rainbow’s Daughter.  However, I may also read The Sea Fairies as I’ve read that Baum considers that his best work.

As you can see, it’s getting harder to define what I’m going to read because as of this point, Baum is incorporating so many of his non-Oz characters into the Oz books, that it’s hard not to just say f**k it and read them all.  Or f**k it and stop reading.  I’m going to continue reading these main Oz books as I only have a few left and I want to finish them by the end of the year.  Next year, I may catch up and read some of the other non-Oz books like The Sea Fairies, Sky Island, The Magical Monarch of Mo, The Master Key, etc.  But right now, I’m focusing on the core five Oz books I have left.

My final verdict on this Oz book is that, compared to the books before it, this one is disappointing overall.  It’s still a good book, but in relation to the other Oz books, it’s only okay.  I’m hoping this is a temporary dip in quality and that the next book is better.

Below is my checklist of Oz books.  I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read.  Next up in the Oz series is Rinkitink in Oz.

New League assignment from Brian this week. We are to present a shelf display of things in our collection that showcases our love of pop culture.

My displays are not what they used to be. I used to have an entire downstairs filled with Star Wars memorabilia. However, since I moved to Florida, that all went into storage and now I only have a few out of the way spots where I can display some of my favorite items.

One of those spots is a bookshelf in my closet.

This bookshelf houses the books on my “To Be Read” pile.  And the shelves are double stacked.  Some are books I’ve never read before and some are re-reads.  Within this shelf you’ll find movie novelizations, comic book novels, Star Trek and Star Wars novels, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman books, etc, etc.  But, as you can see, there are more than just books here.

Hanging on the wall in back you can see the Muppet Christmas Carol poster I have up for the holiday season.  That poster changes a few times a year.  For Halloween I had up From Dusk till Dawn.  On top of the shelf on the left side I have a stack of comic trade paperbacks including some of the Marvel Ultimate books and several Fantastic Four collections.  On top of the trades is a shadow box display of my running medals.  It includes the bib and medals I received for finishing my first two marathons and several other half-marathons.

Next to those on the right side I have two DVD sets.  The black box is the complete Six Million Dollar Man set from Time-Life.  It’s awesome.  I’ve currently watched through Season 1.  On the far right is the Buffy Chosen Collection DVD set featuring all 7 seasons.  I really love the first 3.5 seasons of this show.  But I’m currently selling it on eBay right now, so if you want it, you can try to buy it.

One other display that I have is a small divided section curio containing some of my Star Wars figures.

It features a mix of new and vintage figures.  I tried to theme each section a bit.  In the upper left is the stormtrooper section.  Lower right is the vintage bounty hunter section.  Various Lukes are in the lower left.  I should probably switch these figs out a bit more to change up the displays but I haven’t.

Essentially, those are the only shelf displays I really have left.  Someday, I’ll post a pictorial essay of my previous “Star Wars Room” pictures.

UPDATE – I forgot to include a pic of my “soda shelf” that I keep at work. It features soda cans from the 80s, 90s and today.

Other posts from around the League:

- Tim displays a very geeky shelf of books.
- Fellow TAG Network podcaster Chris Lockhart showcases a drool-worthy Masters of the Universe collection.
- Reis over at The Dork Horde showcases some sweet bobblehead dolls.
- The Goodwill Geek literally has not one more iota of space left on his shelf.

The tenth book of Oz was released in 1916. It was called Rinkitink in Oz.

This book is an interesting entry in the series which makes for interesting reading. The bulk of this book was written 11 years prior to publication in 1905.  It was intended as a separate fantasy story not a part of the main Oz books.  This is clearly evident as you begin reading the book.  I wasn’t aware of this fact, so when I started reading I kept checking to make sure I was reading the correct book.  I had downloaded the eBook from Project Gutenberg and thought that maybe I had downloaded a book other than the one I intended.  Nope, it was clearly Rinkitink in Oz.

The story begins on the island of Pingaree.  Many years prior to this story, the King of Pingaree repelled an invasion with the help of three magical pearls given to him by the Mermaids.  Presently, the King passed down the secret of the pearls to his son, Inga.  Just after, the island is again invaded by the two neighboring islands that had attacked before and this time they catch the King off guard and he can’t get to the pearls in time to save his people.  The island is sacked and the people all become slaves.  The only ones not taken into slavery are the prince, Inga, the visiting King Rinkitink of Gilgad and his surly goat, Bilbil.  Inga retrieves the pearls from the wreckage of the castle, hides two of them in the toes of his shoes and places the third around his neck on a necklace.  The motley group lead by Inga then heads off to the invading islands to free his parents and his people.

What follows is a very entertaining story involving Inga and Rinkitink using the pearls to outwit and defeat the notorious armies of Regos and Coregos.  After the first page or so mentioning where these lands are in relation to Oz, there is literally no mention of Oz again until the very end of the book.  Inga discovers his parents have been put under the care of the newest Nome King, Kaliko, so he travels to the Nome King’s lands in Oz to retrieve them.  After this a few other familiar faces show up and, even though I really liked the story, I thought it wrapped up a little too “neatly”.  It’s like Baum had no ending and just shoe horned in some of his Oz characters as a deus ex machina.

Overall, though, like I said this was a very entertaining story that went to several very fun places and incorporated some cool magic and fantasy elements.  I’ll be interested to see if King Rinkitink, Inga or any of the Pingaree royal family show up again in the Baum Oz books, of which I now only have 4 left to read.  Odds are, though, I’m guessing they won’t.

Below is my checklist of Oz books.  I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read.  Next up, The Lost Princess of Oz.

The Lost Princess of Oz was the 11th Oz story written by L Frank Baum.  It was published in 1917.

This book starts off with a very interesting premise and dilemma. Dorothy and the other girls (Dot and Betsy) decide to tour the Oz country side and go to Ozma to ask permission. However, Ozma appears to be missing along with her magic picture frame. The Wizard discovers that his personal bag of magic instruments is also missing. Dorothy, the Wizard and several others (Dot, Betsy, Button-Bright, Cowardly Lion, etc) travel to Glinda the Good Witch’s palace to see if she can help. Unfortunately, Glinda has already discovered that her magical Book of Records and all of her potions have been stolen.  Someone, obviously a very powerful, magical someone, has somehow managed to infiltrate both the Emerald City and Glinda’s magical palace and stolen all of the magical items found in Oz.  So Dorothy and her friends set off to find out who would have kidnapped Ozma and stolen all these items from Oz.

At the same time, a walking, talking frog called The Frogman, who is the adviser to a group of people called the Yips, discovers that one of his people has lost a gold, jewel-encrusted magical dishpan.  And she’s frantic to recover it.  So they set off for Oz to see if they can find it.  The story switches between both groups of travelers and their steady journey towards solving the mystery of the mysterious and powerful wizard that is making a bid to become the new ruler of Oz.

It must be clear by now that I don’t read the synopses of these books before I start reading them.  I want to go in fresh.  Usually it doesn’t throw me, but it did with Book 10 – Rinkitink in Oz.  It threw me for this book as well.  Since I knew nothing at all when I started, I wasn’t super thrilled to be reading this book based on the title alone.  But the first few chapters had me hooked.  The intertwining plot threads in the beginning reminded me of The Emerald City of Oz.  The plot threads come together about 2/3 of the way through the story and the end plays out nicely.  Yes, magic is involved to “fix” everything but it was earned in that a powerful magician was the antagonist causing all the trouble this time.  It wasn’t as cheap as the ending of The Emerald City of Oz in which the invading Nome hordes were thrown into the “fountain of forgetfulness” caused them to forget they wanted to attack Oz.  That was unsatisfying.  But this book, in it’s own childlike way, delivers on the promise of Dorothy and friends fighting an evil magician for the sake of Oz.

So, yes, I would recommend this one.  No one from the previous book, Rinkitink in Oz, shows up.  I’m still wondering if any of those characters will ever be mentioned again.  Which is odd because Baum just keeps adding characters to these stories.  There are so many characters that inhabit these books that I’d like to see one of them use existing characters without adding new ones.  And since there are so many, you have like 10 people being involved in the main plot.  It’s getting a little ridiculous.  And, FYI, this becomes a problem with the final book that Baum wrote.  But that’s still 3 books away.

Regardless of all that, this is still a fun book that I enjoyed and I would recommend as one of the better installments of the series so far.

Below is my checklist of Oz books.  I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read.  Next up, The Tin Woodman of Oz.

Here we are, my year end recap of the books I’ve read this year. You can check out my Google Spreadsheet for the full list of books I’ve managed to read in 2012 (and every year prior).

So, like last year, I’ll list out the top 5 books I read and the top 5 comics I read this year. I’m excluding re-reads in my evaluations. I’m only including books I read for the first time in 2012.

Here we go.  In no particular order.

Books

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline – Okay, I’m immediately going to call myself a liar.  I said these were in no order, but I’m telling you right now, this was the best book I read in 2012.  Hands down.  There was a lot of buzz going around about the book and I had several people recommend it to me.  Which usually makes me not want to read things.  However, my friend Trish over at Love, Laughter and Insanity believed that I would love it so much that she actually traveled to a bookstore in which Ernest Cline was signing, had him sign a copy of the paperback and then mailed it to me.  And that’s why she’s awesome.  Thanks, Trish.  Your hard work paid off and it has been named as my favorite book of the year.  Seriously, this book is the truth.  Don’t read anything about it or the story.  Just experience it.  You’re welcome.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis – Honestly, this was the best book I read for most of 2012.  Then, in early July, I read the above book.  But even if this isn’t my #1, it’s absolutely in my top 5.  This is probably also in the top 5 of Star Wars books of all-time.  This book had been planned, started, stopped and delayed several times.  Finally, James Luceno grabbed the reins and drove this baby home.  It’s a very ambitious novel.  Focusing on the behind the scenes machinations of Darth Sidious and his master, Darth Plagueis.  It’s fascinating to see the rise of Plagueis, his meeting with Palpatine on Naboo, and their cultivating the plan that will eventually be unleashed in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.  This book is so good it makes The Phantom Menace a better movie.  Luceno was never one of my favorite Star Wars writers but this book and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader have changed that.  I’m now on the lookout for what Luceno plans to do next.

11/22/63 – Stephen King – I’ve been a fan of King’s work for years.  My favorite stuff are his short story collections but I’ve read most of his other seminal novels.  Earlier in 2012 I had decided to finally read The Stand.  I didn’t just love it.  And after 1130+ pages of that, I was reluctant to read another King book that tops 800 pages.  But I acquired this hardback in early 2012 at a used library book sale for around a dollar.  I’ve always been fascinated with the Kennedy assassination and time travel, so this was a perfect topic for me.  And the story delivers.  King really outdoes himself with this book.  King meanders a bit in the middle, but honestly I didn’t mind because the characters were so engaging.  Really, the Kennedy assassination is almost an afterthought.  But when it finally comes it’s awesome.  This book blew me away.  I highly recommend giving it a shot.  Especially since the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death is Nov 22, 2013.  But get the eBook version.  An 800 page hardback is a little tough to read.

Star Trek: Dept of Temporal Investigations: Forgotten History – Christopher Bennett – This is actually book 2 in the series. Book 1 was called Watching the Clock and I honestly didn’t like it. But the concept of this book series is too good so I read this next book anyway.  It deals with a clandestine department in Starfleet that polices the timestream to prevent anyone mucking around with time for their own benefit.  The time agents in this book discover a Constitution class starship in the middle of a space-time anomaly with the designation of Timeship 2.  Quantum readings confirm it as being from their own past.  Now the agents Lucsly and Dulmur must scour the records of Jim Kirk and his crew to discover the secret of the mysterious ship and they also discover links to the creation of the DTI.  Like I said, it’s Star Trek, time travel and Jim Kirk.  And it’s pretty awesome.

Dream Team – Jack McCallum – I did a full review of this book this past summer.  In short, the book is a great, nostalgic look at the stars that made up the original Dream Team.  If you love 80s-90s NBA and its superstars, then you’ll love this book.

Comics

The Definitive Irredeemable Vol. 1 – Mark Waid (writer), Peter Krause (artist) – Collecting the first 12 issues of the series.  Mark Waid really creates something special here.  This series is amazing.  It’s often compared to Alan Moore’s run on Supreme, but honestly, I think this is better.  And I love Moore’s original run on Supreme (it made my year end book list last year).

Batman (The New 52): The Court of Owls saga – Scott Snyder (writer) – This story arc is actually contained in three volumes; Volume 1: The Court of Owls, Volume 2: The City of Owls and Volume 3: Night of the Owls.  It’s involved, runs through the entire bat family of comics and lasts for the first year of the Batman and Nightwing comic titles.  It’s sprawling and a little long, but an ultimately engrossing story.  I won’t lie, some of the story bits that run through Bat Wing or Red Hood and the Outlaws aren’t as necessary or engaging, but the story lines that run through Batman and Nightwing are awesome.

Deathstroke Vol. 1: Legacy (The New 52) – Kyle Higgins (writer), Simon Bisley (artist) – This particular trade collects issues #1-6 written by Kyle Higgins and drawn by Simon Bisley. This Legacy story arc is awesome. Such a really good start to the series for one of my favorite DC characters that has been around since the heyday of the George Perez Teen Titans.  I’ve actually read all the way up to issue #14.  Around issue #9, Higgins and Bisley leave the title and writing/art duties are given to Rob Liefeld.  And that is where the quality of the art (and story a bit) begin to decline.  I’ve never been a fan of Liefeld and he’s not winning me over after taking the reins from Higgins and Bisley.  I love the idea of Deathstroke taking on Lobo, but it just doesn’t live up to what it could have been.  And I can’t say it enough, Liefeld is a horrible artist.  Just crap.  So, just to clarify, I’m recommending the first 8 or 9 issues of this title.  After that it’s okay, but not great.

Justice League (The New 52) Vol. 1: Origin – Geoff Johns (writer), Jim Lee (artist) – As you can see, I’ve been trying to catch up on my DC “New 52″ comics”.  Now that they’ve reached a little over a year old, you can get collections of the first year fairly cheap.  This was the flagship title for DC’s “reboot”.  And it delivers.  The art and writing are great.  I can’t recommend this enough.

I, Vampire (The New 52) Vol. 1: Tainted Love – Joshua Fialkov (writer), Jenny Frison (artist) – Let’s just make this a 4-bagger. Another DC New 52 title. The first volume seen above only collects issues #1-6.  The second volume will be released in March and will collect #7-12 and maybe the first annual.  I personally have read through issue #14.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed this title.  I was wondering how DC would incorporate this into it’s world of super heroes, but they did it.  And they did it well.  This title has a tie in with Justice League Dark which is pretty good.  I don’t know what I expected, but this beat every expectation I had.  Very well done.

I’ll go ahead and give you a few honorable mentions.

Wizard of Oz books – As you know, I was reading the Baum Oz books last year. Several are worthy of mentioning. Most notably would be Book 6: The Emerald City of Oz, Book 7: The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Book 10: Rinkitink in Oz and Book 11: The Lost Princess of Oz.

Psycho by Robert Bloch – I read this for AWESOME-tober-fest 2012 and it surprised me how much I liked it.  A very well written thriller that just goes to show you it wasn’t all Hitchcock that made that movie great.

JLA: Tower of Babel – Mark Waid (writer), Dan Curtis Johnson (artist) – Awesome story by Mark Waid.  Ra’s al Ghul steals Batman’s plans on how to disable the JLA if any of the heroes ever went rogue.  Ghul actually executes the plans and renders the heroes unable to function.  When the group learn they were Batman’s plans, they vote to expel him from the team.  Really good story.  Used as the basis for the Justice League: Doom animated movie.

Cyborg #3: High Crystal – The third of the 4 Martin Caidin Steve Austin novels that created the Austin character and were the basis of the TV Show The Six Million Dollar Man.  I’ve been reviewing these books and will soon start reviewing Season 1 of the TV series.  This was probably the best of the 4 books.  The first one being a close second.

The twelfth book in Baum’s Oz series was The Tin Woodman of Oz and it was published in 1918.

This was a surprisingly good book that actually has a very relevant title as opposed to a few other books in this series (I’m looking at you, Tik-Tok of Oz).  And the book’s plot fills in a lot of back story to the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Ol’ Nick Chopper and The Wizard (he actually has no name and is only ever called The Wizard or Little Wizard) are telling tales in Chopper’s palace in the Winkie country.  A wandering Gillikin boy named Woot arrives at the palace and begins asking how Tin Man became tin.  Nick tells his origin in more detail about the witch Mombi cursing his axe and having his limbs cut off one by one.  After each limb is cut off, he goes to a tinsmith friend of his named Ku-Klip to replace the limb until he was entirely made out of tin.  After his accidents, Nick felt it wasn’t fair to marry his sweetheart, Nimmie Amee, since he didn’t truly love her any more due to not having a heart.  So he leaves.  This reminiscing causes Chopper to wonder what Amee is doing and to realize that he really should have married her like he promised.

So Nick Chopper, the Scarecrow, the Wizard and Woot travel to Munchkinland to see if Amee will still marry the tin woodman.  They meet lots of adventures on the way and even come upon another tin man in the munchkin forest.  This new tin man was a soldier named Capt Fyter who also fell in love with Nimmie Amee and had his sword cursed by Mombi in the exact same way as Nick Chopper.  Which of course led him to Ku-Klip.  He was caught in the forest many years ago and rusted in a rain storm.  Obviously shocked by the similar circumstances of their creation this leads the group to seek out Ku-Klip the tinsmith to discover the whereabouts of Nimmie Amee.  They also discover that Ku-Klip used the cut off human body parts of Nick Chopper and the Tin Soldier to create another person, Chopfyt (combination of the two names Chopper and Fyter).

From there they travel across Oz to where Nimmie currently resides to see if she wants to marry one of the tin men.

Aside from the copious amounts of back story we get on Nick Chopper, we also get a lot of back story about the Land of Oz itself.  We learn that Oz wasn’t always a magical fairyland in which no one ages or dies.  We learn that a fairy queen named Lurline bestowed upon Oz the fairy status and left one of her fairies to be its guardian.  That fairy is Ozma.  This sort of flies in the face of the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz, in which it was said that Ozma was just a long lost royal who was rightly returned to her family’s throne.  Regardless,  I really like this new back story.  It was interesting from the beginning and Baum had a few nice surprises in store.  I also really liked meeting Ku-Klip, the tinsmith who created the Tin Woodman.

From what I’ve read, the Oz books had begun to decline in popularity right before this book, but it became a huge hit and started a resurgence in Oz popularity.  It even carried over into some of Baum’s other non-Oz books like John Dough and the Cherub.

Below is my checklist of Oz books.  I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read.  Next up, The Magic of Oz.

The thirteenth book in Baum’s Oz series was called The Magic of Oz.  It was published in 1919, one month after L Frank Baum had died due to complications after having a stroke.

This story begins with a magician who discovers a simple magical word for transforming anything and anyone into anything and anyone he wishes. The word is complex and must be pronounced exactly, but once learned is very easy to execute. After Ozma declares that only Glinda and the Wizard are able to perform magic in Oz, the magician retires but writes down his discovery in a secret compartment in his magical laboratory. Years later the magician’s son happens upon the secret word, figures out how to use it and escapes his village to do wicked things across the land of Oz. The son, Kiki Aru, joins up with the original Nome King, Ruggedo, who was exiled in Book 3 – Tik-Tok of Oz, to exact revenge on the denizens of The Emerald City, most notably Ozma and Dorothy.  The plan involves tricking the animals of Oz to revolt against the Emerald  City by convincing them that the people of Oz are going to attack and enslave the animals first.

Meanwhile, everyone in Oz is preparing for Ozma’s birthday and Dorothy and like 8 other people travel out into the Oz country side to find Ozma the perfect birthday present.  Yeah, I’m not too thrilled with that part of the story.  Trot and Capt Bill spend most of their time trying to obtain this magical flower that is floating in this island in the middle of a river in the northernmost part of Oz.  Just not very compelling.

However, the scenes with Ruggedo and Kiki Aru convincing the animals to attack the Emerald City are pretty good.  However, while out looking for presents, the Wizard and Dorothy stumble upon the plan and do their best to stop it.  All while Capt Bill and Trot are magically stuck on the island with the magical flower.

Oh, and, spoiler alert, Dorothy and the Wizard train a monkey to jump out of Ozma’s cake and dance.  That is their gift to her.  On  her birthday.

This is an oddly disjointed book.  I liked about half of it.  The rest is sort of silly, but in a bad way.  Normally Baum is able to make the silly parts endearing, but this time, not so much.  I’m not really going to recommend this book, even though we see the return of the original Nome King, one of my favorite Oz characters.  It just seems a little pointless and dull.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of imagination and cool stuff to see, but by the end of the book I was a little disappointed.

Only one more L Frank Baum Oz book would be published after this.

Below is my checklist of Oz books.  I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve currently read.  Next up is the fourteenth and final L Frank Baum Oz book, Glinda of Oz.

L Frank Baum’s fourteenth and final Oz book was published the year after his death in 1920. It was called Glinda of Oz.

It has been said that Baum only barely finished the manuscript for this book before his death. I’ve also read where he didn’t finish it and either an editor at Reilly & Lee or one of his daughters finished the book. It is unclear which is the truth. But the majority of the book was indeed written by Baum before he died. The very next book, The Royal Book of Oz, was actually originally credited solely to Baum with the publishers saying it was written from Baum’s final notes. However, this isn’t true, The Royal Book of Oz is entirely a story written by Ruth Plumly-Thompson and this book was Baum’s last.

In this story, illustrated again by John Neill, Ozma and Dorothy travel to some of the outlying lands of Oz to settle a dispute between two peoples, the Skeezers and the Flatheads.  Both people are set to go to war and Ozma wishes to stop it before it gets to that point.  However, Ozma and Dorothy are trapped by the Skeezer queen in her glass covered city which is magically submerged under the lake on which it previously sat.  A group of Oz’s greatest citizens band together to figure out how to raise the city and save Ozma, Dorothy and the other trapped Skeezer people.

There are parts of this story that are pretty good, and there are parts that aren’t very good.  One of the things that seemed completely ridiculous were the amount of people that traveled to help Ozma and Dorothy in the end.  There were like 20 people traveling over land to try to raise the submerged city.  The only people that absolutely needed to go were Glinda and The Wizard.  That’s it.  They are the only two people in Oz who can legally work magic and since the city is, you know, magically submerged, they are the most logical ones to go.  Woggle Bug didn’t need to go.  What the hell was he going to do?  And Shaggy Man?  Was he going to use the Love Magnet to make the city love him so much that it raises above the lake’s surface?  Absurd.  The whole of the Oz council went.  Jack Pumkinhead was there for some reason.  Why did all of these people need to go?  They didn’t.  Glinda and The Wizard wound up needing help from three other ancient wizards to fix the entire mess anyway.  Just seemed a little excessive to me.  Like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.

(Via My Delineated Life)

While I only kind of liked the book, it’s a bittersweet ending knowing that this is the final Baum Oz book.  After this Ruth Plumly-Thompson writes like 19 or 20 books in a row.  All illustrated by John Neill.  So while this isn’t the best of the books, it’s still an okay read.  I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire series.  I hate to see it end.  But, it doesn’t have to end there.  There are still some other Oz goodies I can read/watch/review.  I may even start delving into Plumly-Thompson’s archive.  I honestly would love to read John Neill’s three Oz books that he wrote and illustrated, but they are long out of print.

Below is my checklist of Oz books.  I’ve crossed off all of the books.  I was able to finish all 14 of the original L Frank Baum Oz books in 2012, which concludes the challenge I set for myself and started back in February 2012 with the very first Oz book.

On January 31, 2012, I made a resolution to read all of the original L Frank Baum Oz books in 2012. I completed that goal on Dec 20, 2012, just under ten months later.  You can visit my Oz Archive to see the reviews of all 14 of those books.

It was a fun ride and I’m really glad I finally did it.  I have such an affection for the original movie, which led me to read the original book and even through reading these 14 books, I have kept that love.  The books were mostly good.  Yes, there was some bad, but nothing was just terrible.   I would have thought that by the end of this challenge I would be a little “Oz’d out” if you know what I mean.  But, honestly, it’s just kindled that flame a little bit more.  I think I don’t want this column to end.

While I don’t plan on making another year long resolution, I do plan on reading more Oz and L Frank Baum books.  After Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson took over Oz for another 19 books.  Will I read all of those?  Maybe.  Eventually.  But not next year.  There are also other movies like 1974′s Journey Back to Oz and the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful which will be released in March 2013.  I will continue to consume this media and review them under this banner.  I’ll even continue to read some of Baum’s other non-Oz writings like The Sea Fairies, Dot and Tot in Merryland and Father Goose: His Book.

I just have enjoyed myself so much experiencing this challenge that I want to keep it going.  And I plan to.

Thank you for experiencing it along with me.  Stay tuned for more to come.

Martin Caidin wrote his fourth and final Steve Austin novel in 1975. It was called Cyborg IV.

By this point, Caidin’s character had spun off into the famous Six Million Dollar Man TV show.  However, Caidin continued his novels as if the TV show didn’t exist.  The continuity within the novels did not overlap with the show.  Despite this fact, this particular book was included as #6 in the Six Million Dollar Man book series.  Which is confusing (is it Book #6 or Book #4?).  The Six Million Dollar Man book series were paperback translations of episodes of the TV show in which authors like Mike Jahn and Jay Barbree novelized episodes like Pilot Error, Rescue of Athena One and Solid Gold Kidnapping.  Caidin’s third Cyborg novel, High Crystal, was also confusingly included in this series.  The first two Cyborg books were not included.

For this last novel, Caidin takes the idea of “man working in tandem with machines” to a new level.  Steve is introduced to a new project within the Army in which an advanced fighter jet/spaceship is directly connected to a human pilot so that ship and man are one and the same. This setup requires that the human pilot have interface ports surgically added to his body, but since Steve already has most of that done, Oscar thinks he’s the perfect test pilot for the project.

The idea that Caidin introduces here is pretty cool.  When directly connected to the ship, Steve would “feel” and “see” what happens to that ship as if it were a part of his body.  Instead of having gauges and digital readouts tell him about the telemetry of the ship, it would be fed directly into his body and he’d know it just as he knows that it’s cold outside or that he’s hungry.  It’s a pretty crazy idea and for some reason it immediately made me think of the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox.  And the first time they test Steve and the plane, they have to dial back the connection to 30%, otherwise, Austin may lose all of his individual identity and become “one” with the ship.  The way it’s written in the book is actually pretty cool.

The problem?  Caidin is his own worst enemy.  We spend the first 1/3-2/3 of the book learning about the project and then training Steve on the equipment.  The final action of the book is really just the very first outer space flight test for the plane/cyborg hybrid.  There is a small conflict with the Russians in that they are destroying US spy satellites, but other than that, the book is just training and a few test flights of the new ship.  And the book essentially just ends not giving you any indication about the future of the project or where Steve will go next.

So, again, I’m a little frustrated reading these Caidin Cyborg books because the author has really good ideas but the written execution of the novel is seriously lacking.  And considering the books are short, (< 200pgs) Caidin still manages to drone on WAY too long about the most mundane things.  So while I’d recommend this more than Operation Nuke it’s not as good as High Crystal or the original Cybog novel.

I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood’s 1976 western The Outlaw Josey Wales since I first saw it with my dad back in the 80s.  I actually saw and know Clint Eastwood more for Josey Wales than I do “The Man with No Name” because I saw it first and it led me to Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy”.  So, being a fan of it for so long I was surprised a few years ago when I discovered the movie was actually based on a 1973 book by Forrest Carter called Josey Wales: The Rebel Outlaw.  The story would subsequently be retitled Gone to Texas.

Being such a huge fan of Eastwood’s take on the character I felt I needed to read the source material. So I got the above book from Paperbackswap.com and set about reading about one of my favorite gunslingers.

I have to say, I’m really surprised how close to the story the movie was. Carter writes a very good, gritty, action-y western. The feel on the page is the same as watching the movie. It helped that I had Eastwood’s visage burned into my brain whenever I hear the name Josey Wales. The mannerisms, the speech. It’s obvious Eastwood was very respectful of the original stories and strayed little from not only the character but the overall storyline. The only thing I think the book does better is the character of Laura Lee is a much better character in the book. But, honestly, I’m not a big fan of Sondra Locke, so that may have been a factor.

But the book, I can honestly recommend it for both fans of Eastwood’s movies and fans of good, western action in general.  The book is a fast paced read, clocking in at around 200 pages and offers a lot of gunfights and good dialogue.  It actually got me excited to read Old West fiction again, something I haven’t really done since high school.

In 1980, Carter followed up Gone to Texas with a sequel called The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales.  This sequel was also included in my book copy.  Needless to say, I was pretty eager to read this sequel and see what could have also been a sequel to Eastwood’s Josey Wales (Eastwood did consider doing it but it never developed).

The story picks up a short time after the original book.  A terrible tragedy befalls Josey Wales’ bride and his newborn child.  Honestly, the tragedy is told in detail and it’s pretty horrific to read, especially as a father.  And the rest of the book is also incredibly violent, even more so than the first novel which is not as much as you’d expect.  However, I was pulled in again by Carter’s writing style and the way he tells a story.  It’s another excellent Josey Wales novel and I liked it as much if not MORE than the original.

It’s sad that Carter never wrote anymore Wales novels.  I know Eastwood had the book and I think he was considering, but by 1980 I think he wanted to do other movies and leave the Western behind.  When he did his final Western, Unforgiven, I was surprised that the main character wasn’t Josey Wales, however, there may have been rights issues.

So if you enjoy good action, you can’t go wrong with these Josey Wales books.  They are excellent examples of fast paced Old West fiction that I personally enjoy reading.  Do yourself a favor and give it a chance.

It’s Day 3 of Superman Week.  I convinced CT over at Nerd Lunch and Robert over at To The Escape Hatch to join along.  So leap in a single bound over to those wonderful blogs and see what Superman content they are offering up this week.

For Superman Week in 2006 (“celebrating” Superman Returns), I reviewed all of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. So, for the release of this new Superman movie, I thought I’d go back and read the novelizations to two of those same movies. There weren’t novelizations of the first two Reeve Superman movies most likely due to a clause in screenwriter Mario Puzo’s contract that forbade anyone other than him from writing the novelizations. But for whatever reason, Puzo never got around to writing the books.  So Warner Books only released novelizations for the second two movies.  I looked forward to reading these novelizations because I love the two Superman sequels in a retarded sort of way and I wanted to see if there was any more awesomely insane weirdness in the books.

So, today, let’s take a look at the novelization to Superman III.

Written by William Kotzwinkle, the guy who also wrote the ET novelization.  The overall structure of the movie story is intact in the novelization.  The biggest difference with the book is that Kotzwinkle adds a sh*t ton of internal dialogue by nearly every character, but mostly Superman/Clark and Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor).  Many of the internal monologues are weird and in the case of Superman/Clark, completely against character.  A lot of Clark’s internalized conversations are him saying how he could fly someone he doesn’t like to the moon and leave them there.  You know, stuff like, “If only you knew I was Superman…” or “If I could, I would <fill in the blank with some super powered vengeance>”.  I’m fairly certain these are supposed to setup the evil Superman later in the book, but I wasn’t buying it.  It was against everything you think about Clark and Superman.

And as for Gus Gorman.  Ugh.  I didn’t really like Pryor’s character in the movie.  Pryor did good with what he was given, but the character was dumb.  This guy who can’t hold a steady job discovers that he’s some idiot savant when it comes to “computers”.  What?  And it’s even worse in the book.  It’s made more clear in the novel that Gus literally has no idea what he’s doing or how he’s doing it.  It’s like all of his computer skills are some sort of super power he can only barely control.  Pryor makes the character somewhat likeable, but you don’t have that luxury in the novel.  And it’s painfully clear that Pryor ad-libbed many of his lines in the movie because in the book, the dialogue for Gus might be some of the worst written crap I’ve ever read.  Filled with weird late 70s-early 80s colloquialisms that make no sense.  Pryor must have agreed because in the movie, he gets the same information across but in a better way.

As for the villains, the characters of Ross and Vera Webster and Lorelei aren’t much better in this novel than they were in the movie.  Their back stories are fleshed out a little.  We get that Vera is fiercely protective of her brother and craves his approval in everything she does.  There are even a few flashbacks to their childhood.  Lorelei, is still mostly one dimensional.  A poor man’s Miss Tessmacher.  She’s pretty and the book expands a bit more on the fact that Lorelei is actually smarter than everyone thinks she is.  But it’s honestly to no further end.

Unfortunately, there’s no extra story to the evil Superman stuff.  I was hoping we’d get more scenes, but we really don’t.  Although, the book does say that Superman’s suit turns fully black and his eyes glow green.  THAT is pretty awesome and I wish the movie would have taken it the whole way.

I’m Superman. BITCHES.

The book’s climax is essentially the same.  Not really much to add.  No further explanation about how Gus came up with the Super Computer idea.  It’s essentially taken from drawings on napkins to fully realized in the cave.  Who developed the AI software the computer runs on?  Gus?  He acts like he’d never seen the computer before when he walks into the cave after riding the donkey down the mountain.  Don’t you think he would have supervised the entire construction?  When the computer shoots the “correct” Kryptonite ray at Supes, how does the computer synthesize the .052% of unknown in the chemical makeup?  It’s UNKNOWN to humans.  Stuff like this needed a better explanation.

I was very disappointed with this book.  I love movie novelizations and it’s rare that I don’t actually enjoy one.  Especially if I like the movie.  I didn’t like this and I can’t recommend it.

If you want a peak into the Superman III movie that could have been, take a glance at this unused Ilya Salkind story treatment.  Prepare for appearances by Supergirl, Brainiac and Mr Mxzyptlk.  It’s weird, but I think it could have been spectacular.

So the new Superman movie, Man of Steel, made it’s theatrical debut on Friday.  To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to do another Superman Week.  I convinced CT over at Nerd Lunch and Robert over at To The Escape Hatch to join along.  So leap in a single bound over to those wonderful blogs and see what Superman content they are offering up this week.

Continuing Superman Week 2013 with another look at one of the Superman novelizations.  Here’s a review of the Superman IV movie novelization from 1987.  And yes, I’m pretty sure I hate this weird cover.

The book is written by B.B. Hiller who is a veteran of movie novelizations. This guy has penned novelizations for Little Monsters (the one with Howie Mandell and Fred Savage), Ghostbusters II, Big, ALL of the 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and ALL of the Karate Kid movies.  So this guy has been around…so to speak.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at these things, Hiller didn’t adapt any of the other Superman movies.  Only this one.  The last one.  And, ostensibly, the worst one. However, to be perfectly honest, I’m a fan of this last Superman movie.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely f**king terrible but I love it anyway.  And I wanted to see if the book makes an attempt at explaining ANY of the crazy ass insanity that goes down in the movie.  A quick check of the page count (144) tells me that, no, this probably won’t explain a g**damn thing.  But I decided to try it anyway.

The verdict?  It’s actually not that bad.  Somehow, the ridiculous story on the page comes across better than it does on the big screen.  However, there are several added scenes and subplots that help explain some of the ridiculousness.  Just so you know, about 45 minutes of footage was removed from Superman IV including an entire subplot about a first failed attempt by Lex to create a Nuclear Man.

Essentially, Lex creates the first Nuclear Man in his penthouse using nuclear power.  A Frankenstein’s Monster-type creature is created.  This leads into a scene in which the first Nuclear Man falls in love with Lacy Warfield (played in the movie by Mariel Hemingway) and encounters Superman outside a nightclub in downtown Metropolis.  Here’s a still of that showdown.

Here’s a clip from YouTube where you can see some of the battle between Superman and Nuclear Man #1.

It looks interesting.  I’m not sure I like the realization of Nuclear Man #1.  And it seems like he gets in a few shots against Superman but then it seems like Superman just straight up murders the guy by batting him into the electrical pole.  Was Supes aiming for the pole to electrocute him?  That pole was MILES away from the nightclub.  It’s confusing and weird.  I sort of see why it was cut.

There’s also more scenes involving Lacy Warfield trying to get Clark Kent to date her and more scenes involving Clark getting sick after being scratched by the second Nuclear Man.  Oh, and Nuclear Man #2 actually literally transforms into a nuclear missile in order to incite nuclear war on Earth.  Yeah, that happens.  It’s his plan.

Also the infamous scene of Superman putting together the Great Wall of China with some weird eye beams after Nuclear Man #2 destroys it?  It doesn’t happen in the book.   He actually just uses super speed to rebuild the wall.  Here’s the excerpt:

Nuclear Man, finished with his “fun” in China, fled back into space. Before Superman followed him, he repaired the damage Nuclear Man had done to the Wall. It had taken mankind years to build that section of it. It had taken Nuclear Man only a few minutes to destroy it. Superman repaired it in a matter of seconds and then shot into the sky after his enemy. It had all happened so fast, the tourists weren’t sure it had happened at all.

Overall, this book is a fun read. But I think the movie is a fun watch. Wacky, zany, completely over the top and ridiculous. But fun. And at 144 pages, it’s a quick read.

I was looking at the calendar the other day and I noticed that I posted my review of Stephen King’s The Stand almost 1 year ago today. August 7, 2013.  I had actually finished the book about a month before on July 9, 2013.  It was nice to finally fill that hole in my King bibliography.  I have several other holes I hope to fill before long (I encourage you to run with every joke that comes to mind in connection with that last sentence. I would.).

Anyway, I’m a big fan of Stephen King and I’ve read much of the man’s bibliography.  However, there are still several King books I’d like to get off my internal “King reading list”; ‘Salem’s Lot, Needful Things, On Writing, The Running Man, The Talisman.

I was talking to my good friend Trish (who I did the Stand readalong with) and she’s been really digging King lately as well. She just finished readalongs for It, Under the Dome and The Shining.  I told her about the outstanding King books I feel I still need to read and she said she’d do The Talisman with me.  How awesome is that?  Even after all her goings on (she actually gives birth to a tiny human sometime around Labor Day) she still agrees to read this book with me.  That’s why I love Trish.

So anyway, the result of all this is that Trish and I are doing a readalong for The Talisman.  I’m pretty excited about it.  I hope this book is good. I know I like Stephen King, but I’ve never read any of Peter Straub’s books.  However, in anticipation, I bought a Peter Straub novel I’ve had my eye on for a while called Shadowland.

Even if The Talisman is terrible, I’ll probably read Shadowland anyway.  Then I’ll know for sure if it was King or Straub that killed the book.

The Talisman readalong officially starts today, August 1, but I finished my previous book early so I started reading it on Tuesday.  I’m not very far in but I definitely have some thoughts forming.  I’ll be tweeting those thoughts under #Talismanalong.  So join me, won’t you?

I have a few articles planned during the readalong including an old ass magazine interview with King and Straub as well as some half way point check ins and the like.  It should be fun.  So grab your copy and get started.  And jump over to Trish’s site and tell her you’ll be joining us.

So here I am, just past the half way point in my reading of the King/Straub fantasy epic, The Talisman.  I’m going to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t totally looking forward to reading this book.  I love King, but the book is kinda long and I kept flashing back to my reading of The Stand.  And after the first 80 pages I just kept thinking, “I’ve made a horrible mistake.”  But the book quickly started getting better and I’m much more comfortable now.  I’m very much enjoying the book at the halfway point.  It’s also getting me excited to read the sequel, Black House, as well as that Shadowland book I bought on a whim several months ago.

While trolling through my old Fangoria magazines, I found an article from The Bloody Best of Fangoria Vol 5.  The Bloody Best was a compilation of previously published articles that Fangoria released at the end of each year.  Essentially, it’s a reprint magazine.  This particular volume was from 1986.  The interview I’m sharing is with both King and Straub around the time of the release of the book.  Like I said, the article was reprinted in 1986 for the compilation, but the article itself is from sometime in 1984.

You can click each of the images to see them BIGGER on Flickr.

For those that don’t want to read the article, there are a few interesting tidbits.

* King and Straub can no longer remember who wrote what. And the parts you think are King probably aren’t because they each tried to put tricks in the story and use each other’s style to fool their readers.
* Universal bought the movie rights to the book in 1984 and Spielberg was attached to direct. Even going as far as having a script commissioned. Obviously, nothing came of that.
* At this point in time, George Romero was set to direct a film adaptation of The Stand right after he finished filming Day of the Dead. King had written the script and whittled it down to a 2.5 hour movie and says in the article that “everything is in there”. But I’m not sure how that’s even possible.
* After The Talisman, Straub is mostly done with supernatural horror. He wants to focus on more crime and mystery. Which is what he does. His next three books are his famed Blue Rose Trilogy (Koko, Mystery, The Throat).

I mentioned Straub’s next few books after The Talisman above.  Conversely, the next published book for Stephen King after The Talisman was Thinner, but that was originally under the Richard Bachman alias.  The next KING book was the short story collection, Skeleton Crew.  Which is one of my very favorite King books.  But Thinner is rather good as well.

It seems like this article just ends.  I guess the interview is concluded in the next issue.  A bit disappointing as I wanted them to discuss any ideas for the sequel we wouldn’t see for like 20 years.

Another thing I thought before reading up on The Talisman was that King and Straub hated each other.  That they started off as friends but the writing of the book drove a wedge into that friendship.  That’s why it took so long to get a sequel.  However, that’s clearly not the case at all.  These guys were friends for years before The Talisman and they’ve been friends ever since.  Interesting the ideas you overhear other people say that have no basis in reality.

So yes, I’m enjoying the book and I’d recommend it to anyone that is curious and already a fan of either author.  However, since this is just the halfway point, there is still plenty of time for this book to go completely “off the rails”.

Well, the Talismanalong I started with Trish at the beginning of August has ended. We’ve all read the book. We had some good discussion on Twitter under #Talismanalong about the book. It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed reading and talking about the book with the participants.  It’s always fun to do these things especially with Trish, she’s just so much fun.  And, she’s due for a tiny human to come out of her at any moment, so let’s all hope that goes well.

Now, though, I guess it’s time to talk about what I thought about the actual book.

Going in, I was not overly excited to read this book. I honestly had no idea what type of story to expect as I knew very little about the book other than the fact that it existed.  I think I was also colored by my “meh-ness” about King’s The Stand.  And the beginning of this book did NOT allay my fears.  The first 80 pages or so are rough (ie boring as ballz).  I was concerned that I may have made a huge mistake.  Then we are introduced to Speedy and The Territories.  And the story takes off.

This book reminds me a lot of The Stand.  The long, epic journey.  I said before that The Talisman is The Stand as written by Neil Gaiman.  Speaking of Neil Gaiman, another book that this reminds me of is American Gods.  One, central “evil” character that must be defeated.  Long, epic journeys, climatic final battles.  Many fantastical elements.  Another book this reminds me of?  Odysseus by Homer.  A hero must fight trial after trial on a long journey to find his way home.  So, yes, this is classic storytelling by two masters of genre storytelling.

Things I liked?  I said this book reminds me of The Stand a little bit, but unlike The Stand, this book has a manageable cast of characters and a much more focused story line.  I didn’t feel like I was drowning in characters and plot throughout reading the book.  I also love the idea and execution of The Territories.  I liked the hero Jack.  I liked his companion Wolf.  For the most part, I think Morgan Sloat is a good villain, but he’s surprisingly not that fully developed considering the length of the story.  I also actually like the final confrontations and wrap ups in this book (unlike, oh, I don’t know, THE STAND).

What didn’t I like? Again, I hate to harp on this with King, but, the story is just too damn long.  This book could have edited out at least 100 pages and not really lost anything.  There is A LOT of naval gazing throughout the different parts of this book.  Especially towards the end.  While it’s more focused than The Stand, it still needed some judicious trimming.  I found “story fatigue” setting in around page 550-600 (there were 770 pages in this book).  Even though I liked the book, I was sort of ready for the final act and wrap up.  It really felt like it took a week to read the last 150 pages or so.  But to be fair, part of that is my inability to find time to read outside of work and on weekends.  With a 2 year old and an 8 month old, reading at home is a rare occurrence.

So, overall, yes, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  And that is a surprise to me.  Will I read the sequel, Black House?  A week ago, I was gung-ho to read it, yes.  But now, I think I’ll eventually read it, but not anytime soon.  Plus, the stuff I hear from people about the sequel is not exactly glowing.  And I hear it has a thin connection to the Dark Tower series of which I am not a fan.  So, we’ll see.  But I can definitely recommend The Talisman as a good and interesting story, with good characters and a lot of imagination.

And now that I know I like this book, I definitely be reading Straub’s Shadowland sooner rather than later.

Thanks, Trish and everyone else for joining me on this Talismanalong. I had a lot of fun.

L Frank Baum died in May 1919. Baum’s final Oz book, Glinda of Oz, wouldn’t be published until 1 year later in 1920. With Baum now gone, Reilly & Lee, decided to continue the Oz series with a new author. They selected Ruth Plumly Thompson to write the fifteenth book in the series. John Neill would return to illustrate the book as he had the previous thirteen books. However, Baum would get author credit on the cover and not Thompson.

It has been said that this book was written off the final Oz notes Baum left in his typewriter after he died.  It has never been proven without a doubt that Baum even left final Oz notes.  Regardless, it is pretty much a given that this book is all Thompson.  Thompson trying a bit to write in the style of Baum, but still 100% Ruth Plumly Thompson.  I really love Neill’s cover for this book.

The story itself is interesting.  HM Wogglebug, TE gets the idea that he is going to chronicle the royal lines of Oz in a book called, of course, The Royal Book of Oz.  While pitching the idea to Ozma, Wogglebug insults Scarecrow (former ruler of Oz and current Emperor of the Winkies)  by saying he wasn’t born from a royal family and, in fact, has no ancestry.  It is interesting to note that this is the first time that we see outright annoyance and dislike towards HM Wogglebug.  In earlier books, characters would imply that he’s tiring to listen to, but nothing outright.  In this book, the characters effectively come right out and say, “We don’t f**king like you.  Go away.”  Especially after he insults the Scarecrow.

So the Scarecrow runs away from the Emerald City back to the pole on the farm Dorothy found him.  He slips down the pole to the Silver Islands that exist way below Oz (and far enough down to not be considered a part of Oz).

Scarecrow tumbles down the bean pole to the Silver Islands

We learn the background of the Scarecrow and how he is the vessel for the spirit of the leader of the Silver Islanders.  We meet his family and learn how he came to be on the pole when Dorothy found him.  However, as these things tend to do, events turn sour and Scarecrow is trapped in Silver Islands and Dorothy and company must set out to find him.  And we learn other cool things like Oz characters CAN die if they are taken out of Oz.  It’s Oz’s magical fairyland properties that are keeping its citizens effectively immortal.  And we get to meet Sir Hokus of Pokes, an elderly, valiant, well-meaning knight who would show up in three more Thompson Oz books (one with the character center stage) and one of John Neill’s books.

Like I said, on the surface, I like this plot.  I like learning back story to a main character.  We see a similar back story for the Tin Man in The Tin Woodman of Oz.  However, and I hate to say this, but the entire endeavor feels hollow.  It feels like Thompson is mimicing Baum’s style but can’t replicate his heart.  There is so much sincere, heartfelt innocence and imagination in Baum’s books, you can’t help but love them.  This book felt like a shallow copy.  Thompson used less of the puns and clever dialogue Baum was known for while simultaneously using multiple plot threads that Baum rarely used.  So I guess, in a way, she didn’t really follow Baum’s style at all.

Overall, I was just bored with this book.  I wasn’t engaged in the story and for the last half just wished it was over.  This is the first time that has happened in my reading of the Oz books.  There were one or two Baum books I didn’t fully enjoy, but I was never bored or wished it to end.  So, no, I can’t really recommend this.  However, John Neill’s artwork is again the centerpiece.  Truly great illustrations.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t envy anyone following in Baum’s footsteps.  And this was Thompson’s first effort.  Thompson eventually wrote 18 more books after this so I assume she gets better the further she moves out of Baum’s shadow.  Looking at the list of her books, a few of them do look interesting; The Cowardly Lion of Oz, The Yellow Knight of Oz and maybe Pirates in Oz,  We’ll see how many I actually get to.

Today I’m going to look at a short story by one of horror’s most celebrated writers, HP Lovecraft. I’ve not really read any of his stuff before, so I thought this would be as good a chance as any to rectify the situation. I found a collection of his stories on Paperbackswap.com last year. That collection is called The Road to Madness: The Transition of HP Lovecraft.

The collection includes Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness which Guillermo Del Toro has been trying to set up as a film adaptation for many years.  But the story I was actually looking for was Herbert West – Reanimator.  It was this short story on which the classic 1985 horror film The Re-animator starring Jeffrey Combs is based.

I, for one, love that cheesy horror film from 1985.  So, I thought that since I was doing zombies for my Halloween theme, I’d not only revisit the awesome Re-animator movie but I’d also read and review the original Lovecraft short story.

And now I’ve read it.  To be honest, the story isn’t the best.  It’s not terrible, it’s just sort of fast paced and feels more like an outline of a larger story.  The short story is broken up into 4 parts.  While reading, it really felt like Lovecraft was repeating himself across the four parts as he continually describes Herbert West’s looks (slight in build, glasses, blond hair) and the events of the previous part of the story.  In action that only takes place in about 50 pages, it gets a little annoying.  I assumed while reading that this must have been originally serialized in a magazine and Lovecraft was just “refreshing” the reader’s memory from last time.  And after some research I see that I’m right.  The story was originally published in four parts in the amateur magazine Home Brew in 1922.

The story is very clearly based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A brilliant but single-minded and unorthodox scientist, Herbert West, conducts arcane and taboo experiments on human bodies trying to reanimate dead tissue.  The story is told by a narrator who has been Herbert West’s assistant/apprentice for many years.  It starts off with experiments while the youths are in medical school and each part tells a different time in their lives when they begin their experiments anew.  The story is told by the assistant from some unknown time in the future as he’s looking back on the events which led to Dr Herbert West’s disappearance.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked the story, I guess.  There is potential there and this story is much more serious in tone and dark in nature than the movie which infuses lots of humor into the story.  I guess, for better or for worse, that I just know the Re-Animator movie so well that the original story just seems odd to me.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite things to do on this blog, movie novelizations.  If you read this blog, you know I love movie novelizations.  Especially movies from the 70s and 80s.  Today, I’m going to discuss the novelization of the zombie classic, Return of the Living Dead.

The history of this movie and its novelization is interesting in and of itself. I discussed it a bit when I reviewed the actual Return of the Living Dead movie. Essentially, John Russo who helped Romero write the original Night of the Living Dead movie, also wrote the novelization AND in 1977 a direct sequel book, Return of the Living Dead.  When Romero and Russo parted ways, they split the rights.  Romero went on to create his “of the Dead” movies and Russo went on to adapt his Living Dead sequel novel.  However, when the book was optioned, the studio had Dan O’Bannon rewrite the book as a script with a heavy comedic undertones to the horror.  That was how the movie was made.  John Russo would go on to write the novelization of O’Bannon’s script.

Like I said, interesting.  I’ve always enjoyed this movie so I thought I’d track down the novelization to review.  Because of the convoluted back story, it’s tough to actually track this down.  Many times the original Russo 1971 Return of the Living Dead book is mistaken for the 1985 movie novelization.  You have to make sure you are getting the right book.

But I got it, and I’ve read it.  How does it stack up to the movie?  By the way, in the below review I’m assuming you’ve seen the movie.

As a novelization, it’s not that bad.  Most of the scenes of the movie are there.  The character names are a little different in so far as the punker group of Freddy’s friends are concerned.  The major story details are the same, however, there are a few changes for the book.  It’s a lot more clear in the book that Freddy used to be a major punker.  He and his girlfriend Tina had walked in on their friend Sunshine after he overdosed on dope and the sight, in effect, scared them straight.  Freddy got a job and was determined not to end up the same as Sunshine.  This event is referenced throughout the book, but is only quickly mentioned in the movie.

The major difference in the novelization is a subplot of Russian spies who worked for the government back in the late 60s during the original events of Night of the Living Dead.  They are the reason the barrels of Trioxin are mistakenly sent to the Uneeda Medical Supply warehouse.  The spies sent some of the barrels there to hide them away from the government so the chemical could be released again later.  The spies then leave the country and head back to Russia.  We have several scenes of them in this book drinking and discussing their actions spying for the government and talking about the missing Trioxin barrels.

More differences involve the character Legs (aka Trash), played by Linnea Quigley in the movie.  During her graveyard striptease (which exists in the movie), in the book it turns into actual sex with her boyfriend, Suicide.  And even though, in the movie, Trash returns as a zombie for a short appearance at the end, Legs, in the book, stays dead and we don’t see her again.

We get a bit more fleshing out of certain characters like the mortuary owner, Ernie.  A little bit more with the paramedics that come to pick up Freddy and Frank, and even some back story to a few of the zombies that go on the rampage.  Two of which were being “dressed” by Ernie in the beginning.  They were a couple who died in a car wreck.  As a matter of fact, the zombie that is interrogated at the end of the movie, in the book, is actually the female side of this dead couple from the beginning.

All in all, this was actually a pretty good novelization.  I enjoyed reading it and seeing a little bit more than what we get out of the movie.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

There are a lot of zombie novels out there. I can’t read and review them all, nor would I really want to. However, there are a few I read that I’ll quickly review for you in an opportunity to get them out there so you have other zombie books to read now that AWESOME-tober-fest 2013 has got you hot for zombies again.

Let’s begin with the novelization of the original Romero classic, Night of the Living Dead.

George Romero’s 1966 film, Night of the Living Dead, is a classic in the horror genre. While attending college in Pittsburgh in the 60s, George Romero and John Russo developed a horror script. They pitched it to a film company, received funding and created one of the most important genre-defining pictures of all time.  This book is the novelization of that script.  Surprisingly, the book wasn’t released until 1974, a clear six years after the release of the movie.  Which means that it wasn’t based on an original draft of the script, it was just a page one copy of the movie.  I didn’t realize that before I started reading.  So, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ve essentially read the book.  Except, the movie is actually better.  The book is slow and a LOT less interesting than the movie.  I don’t know if it’s the way Russo writes or what, but I had a hard time staying awake while reading plus there’s not really any new story information you get for reading.  You may as well just watch the movie again.

In 1978, after Russo and Romero went their separate ways, Russo decided to write a sequel to Night of the Living Dead.  He called it Return of the Living Dead.  This book has nothing to do with the 1985 horror comedy of the same name other than it inspired that movie.  Russo wanted this book to be the movie and wrote it as a screenplay, but Dan O’Bannon disliked Russo’s story and did a page 1 rewrite.  This book was Russo’s attempt to continue the story they began in Night of the Living Dead.  It’s boring, uninspired and will immediately put you into a reading coma before you finish the first page.  It’s not even worth reading as a novelty.  As a matter of fact, just skip both of these books.  Watch the original 1966 Night of the Living Dead movie and the 1985 Return of the Living Dead movie.  They are much more enjoyable and you’ll get more out of it.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith – This is sort of the grandaddy of the outlandish classic fiction category that has become all the rage the last few years.  Stuff like Android Karenina, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter all began with this book.  All the zombie/ninja embellishments were written by Seth Grahame-Smith who also wrote Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, that Johnny Depp Dark Shadows movie and he helped create and write the MTV TV show The Hard Times of RJ Berger.  I read this book several years ago.  It’s actually very entertaining.  I thought that the structure would be 1 chapter of Austen/1 chapter of Smith.  However, it isn’t.  Smith manages to deftly combine zombies and ninjas into every aspect of this story.  The lines have been blurred and it’s really hard to see where one story ends and the other begins.  It’s actually quite amazing how well this book works.  I can’t speak for the other quirky classic makeovers I mentioned, but at the very least, this deserves a read.  I think you’ll like it.  FYI, a prequel was written by another author called Dawn of the Dreadfuls, but I haven’t read it.

Cell: A Novel by Stephen King – I’m a pretty big Stephen King fan.  I’ve read a lot of his bibliography.  I snatched this one up very soon after it was first released in paperback around 2007 or so.  This book is extremely well written and well paced.  Lots of good characters and the action begins almost right away.  I like King’s zombies and how they behave as a “society”.  I even like the idea of “The Pulse” as a genesis for the apocalypse even though it’s never really explained ( which surprisingly only bothers me a little bit).  My main problem with the book is THE GODDAM ENDING.  It just drops you without resolving one of the biggest plot points in the novel.  <SPOILERS>The main protagonist finds his son who’s been turned into a pulse zombie.  The entire book is about him finding his son, protecting him, and finding a way to turn him back “human”.  You get to the point at the end where he’s trying a crazy idea that “just may work” when the book ends.  You never see what happens.</SPOILERS>  THAT INFURIATES ME.  Other than that, the book is great and I’d recommend it.  But that ending…….ugh.  *Fist in air*

World War Z by Max Brooks – This book was recommended to me several times by several different people. So I read it a year or two ago before the movie was announced. And I didn’t like it. The book is very well written, and the story interesting, however, my problem is that it’s written in a style that I don’t enjoy. Reading this book is like reading a textbook about Desert Storm.  Well written and informative, but it’s dry, it doesn’t have a central character or group of characters you can connect with and it talks a lot about military response to the zombie threat.  So, zombies and military and war.  Three genres of storytelling I have very little interest in.  Consequently, I didn’t love this book.

Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber – Death Troopers is the most famous one, but I’m really talking about both of Joe Schreiber’s Star Wars zombie novels which includes the prequel novel, Red Harvest.  They are excellent.  I won’t lie, I honestly didn’t think the Star Wars Universe would mix with zombies.  However, Schreiber did a great job.  On both novels.  He made both novels work and work well.  Death Troopers happens right before 1977′s A New Hope, therefore has a few familiar surprises within its pages.  Red Harvest takes place hundreds of years in the past but is no less interesting as it takes place in a secret Sith training facility on the Sith’s version of Coruscant.  Both of these novels are well written and provide endless entertainment.  I can easily recommend both.  As a matter of fact, I had planned on re-reading this duology for Halloween this year, but simply ran out of time.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.