Customer Reviews

The Undead World of Oz: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Complete with Zombies and Monsters

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'd never read the original Wizard of Oz, so I took this opportunity to check it out, with the (hopefully) added fun of having Oz overrun by the undead. I found the additional zombie material humorous and sometimes witty. Overall the story was a fun read and most times the new material merged in pretty seamlessly, though there were times it was jarring.

I would have given the book 3 stars, but it was obvious from the get go that this was just pumped out to ride the wave of literary classic/zombie mash-ups. The overall look of the book is very shoddy and is a distraction while reading. No care was given to the formatting, which was pretty bad; overly long indents, uneven margins, typos, sentences left over from previous drafts, shifting fonts, and more. It gives one the impression the producers of this book just put it out there to make a quick buck, quality-be-damned.

The Undead World of Oz is just one more zombie-fied rewrite of a classic in a market already overrun with them, and it's not even a rewrite. Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which I wasn't blown away by either), the original text is used, and the author makes minor tweaks and full insertions to create a tale where the undead are overrunning the magical world of Oz. While the approach was unique and interesting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, its commercial success is spawning alot of rip-offs. To me, there is no creativity here; I would rather see the tale retold in its entirety, where the author recreates the Baum's tale using his own words and modifying it as needed to make the tale uniquely his/her own. I have read the original story, and this makes for a redundant retelling and I found myself skimming ahead looking for the additions and changes. If you've read Baum's original, stay faithful to its memory and pass this one (and all future "rewrites" of the classics) by. I wish I did.

I downloaded this to my kindle the other afternoon while i was stuck int he house during a snow storm. 5 hours later I was done. Loved every minute of it. I found myself laughing out loud at some points. It really makes me want to read the original.

This book did not live up to expectations and I assume the other books of similar titles would be the same. There were simply a few inserts of refrences to zombies, etc. and little original writing. Rather disappointing, I thought.

The author's additions of zombies and zombie-related items are detached from the original story;they don't flow as well as the zombie events in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or as well as the vampire referencesin Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

In keeping with the recent trends of adding monsters to classic literature like Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Ryan C. Thomas decided to add some of the walking dead to the original Wizard Of Oz novel in The Undead World Of Oz. This is published by Coscom Entertainment, which specializes in other zombiefied literature like Alice In Zombieland.

The book is essentially a retelling of Dorothy going to Oz, although once there, she finds out that the Wicked Witch of the West casted a spell that makes the dead Munchkins rise from their graves and eating the brains of the living. Dorothy gets a magic gun from a Munchkin with unlimited ammo that shoots out bullets which always hit their intended targets. Toto gets temporarily infected with the zombie virus too, but is conveniently cured by a transfusion by the only Munchkin who is apparently immune to zombie bites, but gets devoured by hungry zombies. The story goes with Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion joining her, although Dorothy accidently kills the Tin Man's zombified ex-girlfriend. They then get sent to the Wicked Witch, who ends up as a zombie buffet. However, her death doesn't stop the curse, so our heroes trek to Glinda for help. Her plan is to create a giant floating brain to lure all the zombies out. This leads into a large Army Of Darkness-type battle, where Dorothy emerges as "Buffy the Zombie Slayer". Also because of all her fighting the undead, her silver shoes turn ruby.

This rewritten adaptation is fair, although alot of it is just a direct copy of the original book. There's not much of a horror element to it, more just zombie gore and violence. Not even very fun in a Sean Of The Dead kind of way. Mainly check it out only if you're a total zombie junkie.

When I was a child, I was force-fed "The Wizard of Oz" movie once a year when it came on the networks. Living in tornado alley as I did at the time, this was amazingly traumatic. Yes, I know it is all about finding your hidden character traits and is allegorical for William Jennings Bryan and the gold standard debate in the early 20th century. But c'mon... didn't those munchkins creep you out? Whenever the storm sirens went off in our small town, I had visions of being innundated by lollipop kids and being forced to wear ruby slippers. At least I had a more manly dog than Toto, who went on to become an annoying 70s soft rock band.

The only good part of the movie was the flying monkeys (or perhaps the flying Monkees as I think one of the munchkins was played by Davey Jones). Anyways, every year I hoped that the monkeys would win, dump the little dog in a large lake and set the scarecrow on fire. Never happened. And the wicked witch was easily dispatched with just a bucket of water. Ooooooh, scary! [sarcasm]

Now, riding on the wave of popularity pioneered by "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies," this book evens the playing field. There ain't no way a bucket of water is going to protect you from the flesh-eating undead. And break out the Weber Grill for a munchkin feast when the monsters come out and play. The lion never finds his heart in this one, he just wets his pants.

Bravo!

A modern twist on a classic. After reading I went and read the orginal Wizard of Oz. Had to compare the 2