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Of Castles and Contractors
Sep. 15th, 2007 06:09 amI recently bought three books from Tails of the Cowardly Lion and Friends, namely Peter Schulenburg's The Tin Castle of Oz, Marcus Mebes's The Haunted Castle of Oz, and Chris Dulabone's Do It for Oz. All three of them were quite short, which is pretty typical of Oz books, but I found that two of the three seemed a bit incomplete.
Tin Castle was the most complete of the three. Although short, there wasn't anything to the story that really needed to be expanded upon, and I think it actually went a bit too slowly in spots. It was full of interesting ideas, including a man made of yellow bricks, caterpillars that spin tin cocoons, and some giant tame mosquitoes that eat bloodroot. It provided a quite feasible explanation as to how the Tin Woodman's home was designed and furnished. My main complaint would be that the prose often comes across as somewhat weak and simplistic. I believe this was Schulenburg's first published Oz story, though. I'll be interested in finding out whether his style improved for later volumes. Another minor and nerdier gripe is that the story has the Tin Woodman planning his castle almost immediately after the events of The Wizard of Oz, yet he doesn't appear to be living there in The Land of Oz. Perhaps the construction was delayed for some reason.
With Haunted Castle, what was there was good, but it really seemed to me to beg for a deeper plot, and some more explanation. I would have liked to know, for instance, more about how Flora is connected to Oz, and why its castle is one of the default images in the Magic Picture. The ending is also a bit of a cop-out, with Prince Terrence and his companions simply escaping their castle without resolving the problems in their country.
Do It had a problem that is somewhat typical of Chris's stories, which is that of trying to pack too much into a relatively short story. Within a mere hundred pages or so, the characters visit the United States, Aquareine's undersea domain, and Merryland. Some of the action, including Madam Innador's banishment from Malaria, takes place offstage. There's also some of the preachiness for which several of Chris's books have been criticized, in this case involving water pollution and abortion. They were delivered by characters who would naturally be concerned about such things, but they still seemed out of place in the story. Overall, though, I did enjoy the book. Johnny Dooit is one of the most interesting one-time characters in the original Oz books, so it was nice to see more of his adventures. I was also glad to see more of the Red Rogue from The Enchanted Island of Yew, although we never find out why Johnny Dooit's name sounds familiar to him. Also, nothing really happens to the major villains at the end, which is also the case in several of Chris's other efforts. I wouldn't be too surprised if a sequel is forthcoming, though.
Yeah, I'm sure these reviews interested no one. Oh, well.
EDIT: I added a little bit to the end of the Tin Castle review.
Tin Castle was the most complete of the three. Although short, there wasn't anything to the story that really needed to be expanded upon, and I think it actually went a bit too slowly in spots. It was full of interesting ideas, including a man made of yellow bricks, caterpillars that spin tin cocoons, and some giant tame mosquitoes that eat bloodroot. It provided a quite feasible explanation as to how the Tin Woodman's home was designed and furnished. My main complaint would be that the prose often comes across as somewhat weak and simplistic. I believe this was Schulenburg's first published Oz story, though. I'll be interested in finding out whether his style improved for later volumes. Another minor and nerdier gripe is that the story has the Tin Woodman planning his castle almost immediately after the events of The Wizard of Oz, yet he doesn't appear to be living there in The Land of Oz. Perhaps the construction was delayed for some reason.
With Haunted Castle, what was there was good, but it really seemed to me to beg for a deeper plot, and some more explanation. I would have liked to know, for instance, more about how Flora is connected to Oz, and why its castle is one of the default images in the Magic Picture. The ending is also a bit of a cop-out, with Prince Terrence and his companions simply escaping their castle without resolving the problems in their country.
Do It had a problem that is somewhat typical of Chris's stories, which is that of trying to pack too much into a relatively short story. Within a mere hundred pages or so, the characters visit the United States, Aquareine's undersea domain, and Merryland. Some of the action, including Madam Innador's banishment from Malaria, takes place offstage. There's also some of the preachiness for which several of Chris's books have been criticized, in this case involving water pollution and abortion. They were delivered by characters who would naturally be concerned about such things, but they still seemed out of place in the story. Overall, though, I did enjoy the book. Johnny Dooit is one of the most interesting one-time characters in the original Oz books, so it was nice to see more of his adventures. I was also glad to see more of the Red Rogue from The Enchanted Island of Yew, although we never find out why Johnny Dooit's name sounds familiar to him. Also, nothing really happens to the major villains at the end, which is also the case in several of Chris's other efforts. I wouldn't be too surprised if a sequel is forthcoming, though.
Yeah, I'm sure these reviews interested no one. Oh, well.
EDIT: I added a little bit to the end of the Tin Castle review.
