Paradox in Oz
Encyclopedia
Paradox in Oz is a 1999
novel
written by Edward Einhorn
. As its title indicates, the book is an entry in the series of books about the Land of Oz
written by L. Frank Baum
and a host of successors.
, with illustrations by Eric Shanower
. It was playwright Einhorn's first novel and first Oz book. (His second in both categories, The Living House of Oz, would appear in 2005.) The publication of Paradox in Oz was timed to coincide with the centennial of the original Oz book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(as was also true of Gina Wickwar's The Hidden Prince of Oz
and Dave Hardenbrook's The Unknown Witches of Oz
). Einhorn's novel was warmly received and widely praised upon its initial publication, as were Shanower's illustrations; a review in Asimov's Science Fiction
called it a "gorgeous book."
n fantasy of Baum's Oz novels, though he also acknowledges the darker revisionist vein explored in contemporary books like Geoff Ryman
's Was
and Gregory Maguire
's Wicked
trilogy. Einhorn constructs an alternate, dystopia
n version of Oz, an Obsidian City in contrast to Baum's Emerald City
.
Einhorn's book is also notable for its use of science fiction
elements, principally time travel
. There is a science fiction thread that winds through Baum's work, manifested in non-Oz books like The Master Key but also in the Oz stories, with robots (Tik-Tok of Oz
), domed cities (Glinda of Oz
), and other features. Critics have remarked on the interest in and acceptance of technology that sets Baum's Oz apart from earlier fantasy domains.
finds a white hair in his luxurious green beard, and common citizens confront wrinkles and back problems. Ozma and her advisers realize that the magic anti-aging spell, which has prevailed in Oz throughout her reign, has now stopped working. In their attempt to figure out why, Ozma and Glinda
consult the Great Book of Records, but find cryptic references to the "Man Who Lives Backwards." (This person is actually living in Glinda's palace at the moment; but since he lives backwards, he is a baby in the present time, and cannot explain himself to them.)
In trying to puzzle out the problem, Ozma and Glinda confront a Parrot-Ox — a large magic creature, half parrot and half ox. "Its front half was covered with red, blue, and green plumage, and out from among its feathers proudly emerged a bright yellow beak. Two large, orange wings rested against its body, which was a speckled brown, and it had a long black tail with a feathered end. It stood upon four hooved feet, and its dark eyes darted nervously around the room, dismayed at being discovered." They learn that these creatures, normally invisible, are amazingly common; they co-exist with us in our everyday lives. A Parrot-Ox is "capable of doing nothing at all, unless it is impossible."
This particular Parrot-Ox calls himself Tempus. To resolve the mystery of the aging of Oz, Ozma rides Tempus back in time, to meet her predecessor King Oz in the forest surrounding the Forbidden Fountain. She encounters a curious person called Dr. Majestico, and she accidentally changes the past so that Oz becomes an evil place, ruled by a tyrannical Wizard from an Obsidian City, a negative-image of her own Emerald City. She must deal with altered versions of her familiar friends: the beautiful Glinda is old and worn, while the Tin Woodman
is a human and very malevolent headsman, Nick Chopper.
In her efforts to remedy the situation, Ozma takes more and more trips into the past; the woods around the Forbidden Fountain are soon filled with Ozmas from different times. Ozma must confront Tip, her own earlier male self, and take a journey to Absurd City to find the Man Who Lives Backwards; she must face mind-boggling confusions, and numerous Parrot-Oxes, before she can restore the familiar world she knows and loves.
, Baum specifically places the Munchkin Country
in the eastern section of Oz; Dorothy's house famously kills the Wicked Witch of the East
when it lands on her there. Yet in later books, Tik-Tok of Oz
and The Lost Princess of Oz
, maps show the Munchkin Country in the west.
In Obsidian City, the alternative version of Omby Amby calls himself Wantowin Battles — a name introduced by Ruth Plumly Thompson
in her Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
(1939).
When dealing with Dorothy, the Evil Version of the Wizard makes a reference to the 1939 movie version, by reversing part of the Wizard's dialog, describing himself, as "a very bad man, but I am a very good wizard," before performing a wicked spell on the girl.
(1986) on. Yet for pertinent incidents in Einhorn's text, Shanower expands his style to include elements of pop art
and op art
, and allusions to the work of M. C. Escher
.
1999 in literature
The year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Edward Einhorn
Edward Einhorn
Edward Einhorn is an American playwright, theater director, and novelist, noted for the comic absurdism of his drama and the imaginative richness of his literary works....
. As its title indicates, the book is an entry in the series of books about the Land of Oz
Land of Oz
Oz is a fantasy region containing four lands under the rule of one monarch.It was first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, one of many fantasy countries that he created for his books. It achieved a popularity that none of his other works attained, and after four years, he...
written by L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
and a host of successors.
The book
Paradox in Oz was published by Hungry Tiger PressHungry Tiger Press
Hungry Tiger Press is an American specialty publisher of books, compact discs, comic books and graphic novels, focused on the works of L. Frank Baum, other authors of Oz books, and related Americana. Perhaps most notably, the Press has published rare, early, long-neglected dramatic and musical...
, with illustrations by Eric Shanower
Eric Shanower
Eric James Shanower is an American comics artist and writer, best known for his Oz novels and comics and the on-going retelling of the Trojan War as Age of Bronze.-Biography:...
. It was playwright Einhorn's first novel and first Oz book. (His second in both categories, The Living House of Oz, would appear in 2005.) The publication of Paradox in Oz was timed to coincide with the centennial of the original Oz book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
(as was also true of Gina Wickwar's The Hidden Prince of Oz
The Hidden Prince of Oz
The Hidden Prince of Oz is a novel written by Gina Wickwar and illustrated by Anna-Maria Cool. As its title indicates, the book is an entrant into the series of Oz books by L. Frank Baum and his many successors...
and Dave Hardenbrook's The Unknown Witches of Oz
The Unknown Witches of Oz
The Unknown Witches of Oz: Locasta and the Three Adepts is a 2000 novel written by Dave Hardenbrook, with illustrations by Kerry Rouleau. As its title indicates, the book is an entry in the long-running series of books about the Land of Oz, written by L...
). Einhorn's novel was warmly received and widely praised upon its initial publication, as were Shanower's illustrations; a review in Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction
Asimov's Science Fiction is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy and perpetuates the name of author and biochemist Isaac Asimov...
called it a "gorgeous book."
Genre
In Paradox in Oz Einhorn maintains a fidelity to the benign utopiaUtopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n fantasy of Baum's Oz novels, though he also acknowledges the darker revisionist vein explored in contemporary books like Geoff Ryman
Geoff Ryman
Geoffrey Charles Ryman is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and surrealistic or "slipstream" fiction.Ryman currently lectures in Creative Writing for University of Manchester's English Department. His most recent full-length novel, The King's Last Song, is set in Cambodia, both at the time of...
's Was
Was (novel)
Was is a WFA nominated 1992 parallel novel by Geoff Ryman focussing on the lives of disparate individuals linked to one another by L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the musical film version...
and Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...
's Wicked
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel published in 1995 written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, its sequels, and the...
trilogy. Einhorn constructs an alternate, dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n version of Oz, an Obsidian City in contrast to Baum's Emerald City
Emerald City
The Emerald City is the fictional capital city of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
.
Einhorn's book is also notable for its use of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
elements, principally time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
. There is a science fiction thread that winds through Baum's work, manifested in non-Oz books like The Master Key but also in the Oz stories, with robots (Tik-Tok of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum, published on June 19, 1914. The book actually has little to do with Tik-Tok and is primarily the quest of the Shaggy Man to rescue his brother, and his resulting conflict with the Nome King.The endpapers of the first edition...
), domed cities (Glinda of Oz
Glinda of Oz
Glinda of Oz: In Which Are Related the Exciting Experiences of Princess Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy, in Their Hazardous Journey to the Home of the Flatheads, and to the Magic Isle of the Skeezers, and How They Were Rescued from Dire Peril by the Sorcery of Glinda the Good is the fourteenth Land of Oz...
), and other features. Critics have remarked on the interest in and acceptance of technology that sets Baum's Oz apart from earlier fantasy domains.
Synopsis
As the novel opens, inhabitants of Oz are suddenly noticing unusual signs of aging. Omby AmbySoldier with the Green Whiskers
The Soldier with the Green Whiskers is a major character in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum and his successors. His name is Omby Amby, but this was so obliquely stated that he also became known briefly as Wantowin Battles.-Early appearances:...
finds a white hair in his luxurious green beard, and common citizens confront wrinkles and back problems. Ozma and her advisers realize that the magic anti-aging spell, which has prevailed in Oz throughout her reign, has now stopped working. In their attempt to figure out why, Ozma and Glinda
Glinda
Glinda is a fictional character in the Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. She is the most powerful sorceress of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country south of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.- Literature :Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
consult the Great Book of Records, but find cryptic references to the "Man Who Lives Backwards." (This person is actually living in Glinda's palace at the moment; but since he lives backwards, he is a baby in the present time, and cannot explain himself to them.)
In trying to puzzle out the problem, Ozma and Glinda confront a Parrot-Ox — a large magic creature, half parrot and half ox. "Its front half was covered with red, blue, and green plumage, and out from among its feathers proudly emerged a bright yellow beak. Two large, orange wings rested against its body, which was a speckled brown, and it had a long black tail with a feathered end. It stood upon four hooved feet, and its dark eyes darted nervously around the room, dismayed at being discovered." They learn that these creatures, normally invisible, are amazingly common; they co-exist with us in our everyday lives. A Parrot-Ox is "capable of doing nothing at all, unless it is impossible."
This particular Parrot-Ox calls himself Tempus. To resolve the mystery of the aging of Oz, Ozma rides Tempus back in time, to meet her predecessor King Oz in the forest surrounding the Forbidden Fountain. She encounters a curious person called Dr. Majestico, and she accidentally changes the past so that Oz becomes an evil place, ruled by a tyrannical Wizard from an Obsidian City, a negative-image of her own Emerald City. She must deal with altered versions of her familiar friends: the beautiful Glinda is old and worn, while the Tin Woodman
Tin Woodman
The Tin Woodman, sometimes referred to as the Tin Man or the Tin Woodsman , is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum...
is a human and very malevolent headsman, Nick Chopper.
In her efforts to remedy the situation, Ozma takes more and more trips into the past; the woods around the Forbidden Fountain are soon filled with Ozmas from different times. Ozma must confront Tip, her own earlier male self, and take a journey to Absurd City to find the Man Who Lives Backwards; she must face mind-boggling confusions, and numerous Parrot-Oxes, before she can restore the familiar world she knows and loves.
Ozian allusions
Fans of Oz will find subtle allusions in Einhorn's text. In Chapter Six, for example, Tempus tells Ozma that he remembers things that "never happened," such as "when East used to be West and West used to be East...." This is a reference to a major and well-known contradiction in the Oz literature. In the second chapter of the original Oz book, The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
, Baum specifically places the Munchkin Country
Munchkin Country
Munchkin Country is the Eastern region in the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In Wizard it was originally called "the land of Munchkins", and "Munchkin Country" in all subsequent Oz books...
in the eastern section of Oz; Dorothy's house famously kills the Wicked Witch of the East
Wicked Witch of the East
The Wicked Witch of the East is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum in his Oz series of books....
when it lands on her there. Yet in later books, Tik-Tok of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum, published on June 19, 1914. The book actually has little to do with Tik-Tok and is primarily the quest of the Shaggy Man to rescue his brother, and his resulting conflict with the Nome King.The endpapers of the first edition...
and The Lost Princess of Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz is the eleventh canonical Oz book written by L. Frank Baum. Published on June 5, 1917, it begins with the disappearance of Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz and covers Dorothy and the Wizard's efforts to find her...
, maps show the Munchkin Country in the west.
In Obsidian City, the alternative version of Omby Amby calls himself Wantowin Battles — a name introduced by Ruth Plumly Thompson
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Ruth Plumly Thompson was an American writer of children's stories.-Life and work:An avid reader of Baum's books and a lifelong children's writer, Thompson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began her writing career in 1914 when she took a job with the Philadelphia Public Ledger; she wrote...
in her Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz is the thirty-third in the series of Oz books created by L. Frank Baum and his successors, and the nineteenth and last written by Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was illustrated by John R...
(1939).
When dealing with Dorothy, the Evil Version of the Wizard makes a reference to the 1939 movie version, by reversing part of the Wizard's dialog, describing himself, as "a very bad man, but I am a very good wizard," before performing a wicked spell on the girl.
The illustrations
Eric Shanower's black-and-white illustrations for Paradox in Oz are faithful to the richly romantic style that Shanower has developed for Oz illustration, from The Enchanted Apples of OzThe Enchanted Apples of Oz
The Enchanted Apples of Oz is the first of the modern graphic novels based on American author L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz world, written by Eric Shanower...
(1986) on. Yet for pertinent incidents in Einhorn's text, Shanower expands his style to include elements of pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
and op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
, and allusions to the work of M. C. Escher
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher , usually referred to as M. C. Escher , was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...
.