BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA (06/27/85)
From: Bard Bloom <BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA> > > Baum, who was called the Royal Historian of Oz, wrote 14 Oz books: > > 1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (reissued as The Wizard of Oz) ... > 40. Merry Go Round in Oz Thank you for excluding P.J. Farmer's _A_Barnstormer_In_Oz_, which strongly does not deserve to be in the Oz canon. On one talon, Farmer based his book on the premise that _The_Wizard_of_Oz_ was approximately true, but that all the rest of the books were stories made up by Baum and Thompson and so on. Then he made it SF, badly, and a generic Philip Jose Farmer violence-and-sex story. (Flame repellant: It's been a while since I read it, and after I found out what Farmer intended I didn't read very carefully. Too, my impressions of lust and blood may have been heightened, because I didn't expect or want to find either one in an Oz book. *Some* things should be sacred... ) Anyone want to send Farmer some water from the Forbidden Fountain? (Spoiler! But you know nothing bad will happen anyways...) But then, when I reread some of the Baum books recently, I found them bloodier than I remembered. In _Ozma_of_Oz_, Dorothy turns a lot of Nomes into eggs (-8 O.K., yolkier rather than bloodier 8-). In _Emerald_City_Of_Oz_, Ozma and the Scarecrow trick a horde of Nomes, Whimsies, Phanfasms, and Growleywogs into drinking some water of Oblivion, obliterating their memories and personality. O.K., no-one died from these spells, but what's the practical difference between those fates and death? (Answer: ten-year-olds can't see that there is no practical difference.) And I can see why Farmer wanted to do a more realistic Oz. Ozma was acting rather stupid: virtually ignoring a massive invasion of Oz, not thinking about it until the evening before. Their council of war (not-war, really) was impressively frustrating. Any fantasy gamer would have had a dozen suggestions, like filling in the tunnel by the power of the Magic Belt (which she did *after* the invasion). I'd like to see some more Oz books, keeping the charm and inventiveness of the originals, with better-for-nominal-adults characterization. (That was never the point of the originals, of course.) Maybe it's possible. Bard -------
WPHILLIPS.ES@Xerox.ARPA (06/28/85)
From: WPHILLIPS.ES@Xerox.ARPA I think I know the answers. For the pilots, I think the first one is *Probe V* It was about the last of a race of androids left to watch over earth. The second pilot is *Spectere*. It shows up every now and again on saterday afternoon movies. As for the short lived series, I gatcha covered on that one. It was called *Planet Earth.*( I think Roddenbery mant it as an earthbound *Star Trek*). Now I have some trivia 1) Name the pilot film for *Planet Earth*. and in case you get that. 2) Name the actor(s) that played the lead role.
gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker) (06/28/85)
>> >> Baum, who was called the Royal Historian of Oz, wrote 14 Oz books: >> >> 1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (reissued as The Wizard of Oz) ... >> 40. Merry Go Round in Oz >> It would appear I missed a list of all the Oz books. Could somebody mail me a copy of it? Thanks in advance. -- Geoff Loker Department of Computer Science University of Toronto Toronto, ON M5S 1A4 USENET: {ihnp4 decwrl utzoo uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!gkloker CSNET: gkloker@toronto ARPANET: gkloker.toronto@csnet-relay