Category: Books
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Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 5
Episode Five: Triumph of the Hen Billina marches into the Nome King's palace like an action-movie hero in the final act. She spots all ten purple (Evish) items and begins reversing the enchantments. When she's done with that she starts finding green objects which are people from Oz. With her inside information to help, Billina…
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Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 4
Episode Four: Extreme Makeover Edition Ozma goes into the Nome King's palace to find the transformed royal family of Ev, and immediately makes a terrifying discovery. The Nome King apparently hired Liberace as his interior decorator. Read the description and tremble: "The ceilings were composed of great arches that rose far above her head, and…
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Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 3
Episode Three: The Nome King! The Army of Oz marches north, toward the entrance to the Nome King's dominions. Along the way there's a bit of a delay as Billina has to stop to lay an egg, which the Scarecrow stashes in his pocket when nobody else has a use for it. Pay attention to…
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Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 2
Episode Two: Operation Ev Freedom Dorothy, Tiktok, and Billina make their way to the royal palace of Ev, where they meet the current ruler, Princess Langwidere. Langwidere is extremely vain, and takes fashion obsession to a new level. Instead of changing outfits or hats, Langwidere has a collection of thirty heads and wears a different…
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A Modest Comment
It's always a bad idea to complain about movies you haven't even watched. But in the case of the new film version of Gulliver's Travels, starring Jack Black, I'm going to do it anyway. The trailer looked horrid (short version: Jack Black doing his usual boorish stuff but with miniature sets and other actors composited…
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Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 1
Episode One: The Return of Dorothy! The third in L. Frank Baum's immortal Oz books, Ozma of Oz is the first of what can be called a "sub-trilogy" of stories. Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard In Oz, and The Road to Oz all chronicle journeys by Dorothy through weird countries with the ultimate…
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The New Classics
Back in August I was a guest at our local (if you're an American) science fiction convention, Pi-Con. One panel they put me on was about "The New Classics" of science fiction and fantasy — classic works published since about 1980 or so. I wrote up a list of new classic SF, using the inestimable…
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Ozblogging: The Marvelous Land of Oz, Part 6
Episode Six: Metamorphosis (and Conclusion) Glinda hauls old Mombi back to her army's encampment, and after some polite grilling (with only aa few death threats) the old witch comes clean. Yes, the Wizard did steal away the infant heir to the throne of Oz, Princess Ozma. He brought her to Mombi to conceal, which Mombi…
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Ozblogging: The Marvelous Land of Oz, Part 5
Episode Five: Glinda The Scarecrow & co. drop in (literally) on Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. When the Scarecrow asks for her help in getting rid of Jinjur, Glinda brings up the pretty valid objection that the Scarecrow only had the throne in the first place because some wandering con man gave it…
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Ozblogging: The Marvelous Land of Oz, Part 4
Episode Four: Thrilling Air Adventures! The heroes gather up a weird assortment of junk — sofas, a broom, leaves from the royal Palm Tree, and the stuffed head of a deer-like animal called a Gump. They bind all this stuff together with clothesline and then Tip uses the remaining Powder of Life to animate it.…
The Cambias Digression 