Customer Reviews

Visitors from Oz: The Wild Adventures of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman

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

 

 

I've loved Martin Gardner's work for years. I've loved Oz for years. I /wanted/ to like his 1st Oz book, but I just couldn't. While he has interesting things to say and a few interesting characters, the levels of real-world negativity in the book were nothing short of crushing. The plot was merely adequate and the mechanics clunky. While Gardner was an Oz fan for much of his life (and a founding member of the Int'l Wizard Of Oz Club in '57, I recently discovered), it seems that he came to write his Oz book too late, after his cynicism levels had gotten too high to suppress in his writing and his sense of wonder had had just a few too many Wicked Witches attack it.

I really wanted to like this and I really didn't. (I'll also mention that the Posthumous John R. Neal Oz book, Illustrated by Eric Shanower, isn't really worth the time either, though it's not as bad.)

Sorry, Martin. :(

Martin Gardner has given us a delightful addition to Oziana. In this book, denizens of Oz (Dorothy, the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow) come to our world via a Klein Bottle. It's unlike any previous Oz book. In it we find the Internet, the gods of Mount Olympus (Apollo "used to take the sun around the earth, but he had to stop doing this when astronomers proved that the earth went around the sun"), characters from Alice's Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land, and the bear detective Sheerluck Brown. Oz purists may disapprove of all this, but I think it's great fun. "Visitors From Oz," with its humor and originality, is one of the very best of the post-Baum/Thompson Oz books.

I have read all of the original Oz books by L. Frank Baum and some of the more recent ones. I can tell you right now that this book spoiled Oz for me. I can't imagine Oz having computers and telephones. The author may have tried to recreate the land of Oz, but he did not succeed. He kept going back to different books that Baum wrote about Oz, telling about this or that, and that was basically what the first two or three chapters were about! And also, I never really got into this book as I did with the others, for me, this book wasn't Oz. Gardner may have thought he was doing a good job, but I didn't. Oz is supposed to be a magic place, if there are computers and telephones and the like, it takes the magic away. And Glinda never had Oz transported to another dimension, she made it invisible or something, not to another dimension. For people who love Oz the way Baum and the other authors depicted it, don't read this book. It really does take away from the world that Baum created and others just improved upon. Gardner shouldn't have written this book, in my opinion, it shouldn't have ever been written. Just leave Oz the way it is.

Having finished several years of tracking down and reading all of the Oz books by the original Royal Historian of Oz, L. Frank Baum, I've decided to start looking for the dozens of books written by other writers in the decades since them. Naturally, it's proven easier to find recent additions to the mythos than classics, which sucks, but I do what I can. Among these readings came 1998's "Visitors From Oz" by Martin Gardner. I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed. Gardner did his best to write in Baum's style, but the story is set in the modern day, and talking with that rather simplistic style about the Internet, nuclear weapons and (at one disturbing point) a suicide feels rather condescending. Garner is also a mathematician, and loads the book with physics and geometry and theory, plus a couple of rather superfluous side trips to Mount Olympus and Lewis Carroll's Wonderland sort of grind the book to a halt. It's not terrible, but it's hard to recommend.

I had the misfortune to pick this book up in a science fiction bookshop recently. The spiel on the back of the book - not clearly marked out as a children's book in its UK edition, I might add - promised a great deal, and being a fan of Jeff Noon's writing, in particular his Lewis Carroll homage 'Automated Alice', I was quite taken with the possibility of discovering an American equivalent, a funky modern revisiting of the Land of Oz.
Sadly, 'Visitors From Oz' proved to be abominable tripe.<

I was about halfway through reading this fine book for the first time, when I was shocked to hear that the author Martin Gardner had recently passed away. He was a mathmetictian and author, but most noted for his work on Alice In Wonderland titled The Annotated Alice. He was also a big fan of L. Frank Baum, to which he did a retrospective in his book The Wizard Of Oz And Who He Was. Gardner later wrote this book for the 100th anniversary of the original Wizard Of Oz. Set in modern day(when it came out it was 1999), movie director Samuel Gold wants to do a film based on The Emerald City Of Oz, so of course he tries getting Dorothy to help make it. He manages to email Glinda(who apparently was set up with AOL)and arranges for her to come to America, although Glinda had Oz sealed away from the rest of the world at the end of The Emerald City Of Oz, so she arranges for Ku-Klip(Tin Man's old tinsmith)to create a Klein Bottle to bridge the gap between to Oz and Earth. A "Klein Bottle" is like an inter-dimensional Mobius strip. They find that they have to install the bottle in the town of Ballville in order to be able to make it to America, so Dorothy along with Scarecrow and Tin Man head out to Ballville with the bottle. Along the way, they discover a doorway leading to Wonderland(yes, that Wonderland)and decide to give it a look. Once there, they find out the inhabitants there aren't as mad as Lewis Carroll advertised. After they come back from there, they have a run in with a pushy giant, but manage to finally make it to New York which is where the Klein Bottle leads to. They befriend Samuel Gold, however soon learn that he is not the most loved movie producer in town. His rival, Buffalo Boggs, is planning his own sketchy production of Peter Pan, so he sends two goons to try and snuff out Dorothy and Co. After a few failed attempts, Dorothy uses the Water of Oblivion to erase the goons and Boggs' memories. So, Dorothy goes back to Oz, Gold makes his movie, and Martin Gardner breaks the fourth wall by being called in to write a book about the whole thing. I'd say that this was a pretty good Oz story, at least taking into account the history of the original books, although its seems a little convenient that a portal to Wonderland is located in Oz. But its a nice use of the characters, and puting them in present day America. I'd very much recommend this for hardcore Ozians.

Being an Oz fan for nearly 50 years, I was reeled in. But I quickly drowned in Gardner's laundry list of celebrities, authors and beloved fictional characters who are insulted by their inclusion in this lusterless soggy saga. L. Frank Baum has been maligned. All of us who grew up with or grew to love the Joy of Oz have been maligned by this preposterous travesty. Save your money and your time. This book is neither adult nor children's literature. It's just plain drivel. - advice from a former schoolteacher.

Very good, except for a few things a nitpicky person like me picks up on. Martin Gardner keeps on endorsing other books of his (namely 'Annotated Alice'). The by far dumbest thing in the book was Scarecrow/Tinman comedy stint, forcing u to listen to Who's on First

I am a HUGE Oz fan and I love this book. It's so exciting and addictive that I read it in one sitting. I especially appreciated the jokes. Unlike most humor today, they weren't offensive and were actually quite witty. I also found the portrayals of the characters to be faithful to Baum's books. The elements from "Alice In Wonderland" woven into the story were a little strange and slightly out of place, but since I love Alice too, I didn't have a problem with it. This is a wonderful book, but I can see how some people wouldn't like it. You have to like the style of writing and humor or else you might find it too corny.

I found this book to be a worthy member of the Oz series. While it is more enjoyable if you have a knowledge of the previous books, even a newcomer with only knowledge from the movie can enjoy it.

It has a sense of humor to the series without making fun of it and fans and novices will enjoy it. A quick read, perhaps better use of illustrations would have added to the overall enjoyment of the book. Hopefully more books will be coming from the author.