Oz novelists of the new generation
To celebrate L. Frank Baum's birthday this week, the Books of Wonder bookstore in Manhattan is hosting a book-signing that features two friends whose Oz novels I've enjoyed:
- Atticus Gannaway, author of The Silver Sorceress of Oz
- Edward Einhorn, author of The Living House of Oz
Both these books explore the blurry lines between good and wicked in the tradition of L. Frank Baum, eschewing the easy distinction of evil that many fantasies depend on. As Baum wrote in The Lost Princess of Oz--
A curious thing about Ugu the Shoemaker was that he didn't suspect, in the least, that he was wicked. He wanted to be powerful and great and he hoped to make himself master of all the Land of Oz, that he might compel everyone in that fairy country to obey him. His ambition blinded him to the rights of others and he imagined anyone else would act just as he did if anyone else happened to be as clever as himself.
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