Ozma Of OZ!

Ozma of OZ is the third novel in the ludicrously successful OZ series by L. Frank Baum. First published in 1907, three years after The Marvelous Land of OZ in 1904 and seven years after The Wonderful Wizard of OZ in 1900. This Baum had been reluctant to write additional OZ books, trying instead to write other things, but the amazing success of the first two books showed him that he was foolish to hold off any longer. This novel picks up after the events of the second one and is the first written with the clear intention of creating an ongoing series. 

This novel also reintroduces Dorothy Gale of Kansas back into the mix. While the characters only get to OZ technically at the end of the book, she is swept away to the land of EV. There she encounters first the talking chicken Billina and later the threatening Wheelers, creatures with wheels for hands and feet. Avoiding the latter, Dorothy and Billina find Tik-Tok a clockwork man who requires periodic winding. Soon the trio are brought to the leader of EV who it turns out is a woman who has multiple heads depending on her mood. She is not the real queen of the land, the real queen and her family having been sent into slavery to the Nome King many years before by their mad father and the former king who has since committed suicide. Soon enough an expedition from OZ arrives with Ozma, the new queen of OZ, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion along with a few other like the Hungry Tiger and the living wooden horse. They join forces to find the lost queen and her children and that takes up the last half of the story. 

The Nome King is a duplicitous sort but eventually as everyone suspects our assembled heroes get the best of him and the queen and children are rescued. With EV sorted out they return to OZ, but eventually Dorothy gets homesick and worried about her Uncle Henry and soon she is back home. But we all know more is to come. 

This storyline of this novel and the previous one were combined to create the inspiration for the movie Return to OZ. This movie was not met with the greatest affection when it debuted in 1985. Despite being a Disney project it's a darker take on the OZ landscape than is the famous MGM movie adaptation and that perhaps left audience members cold. But darkness is part of the Baum books. 

Next time we meet another old friend in Dorothy and the Wizard of OZ. 

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