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Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
Science-fiction & fantasy literature: a critical list with discussions.
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Welcome to the Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works web site!
You have apparently come to this page from a link on a search engine or another site. If this is your first visit here, I much recommend that you take a few minutes to look over the introductory material accessible via the red “Introductory” zone of the Site Menu available from the “hamburger” icon in the upper right of this (and every) page. An understanding of the purposes and principles of organization of this site will, I hope and believe, much augment your experience here, for this page and in general. You can simply click this link to get at the site front page, which, unsurprisingly, is the best place to start. Thank you for visiting.
This is a brief discussion of the “other” Oz authors (other than Baum and Thompson, that is) and, of course, of the speculative-fiction books by them.
This discussion and list does not necessarily include every book by each such author: it includes only those books that I both know and like. Just as with the author list itself, omission of a particular item may mean I didn’t think highly enough of the omitted item, or it may simply mean that I have not yet sufficient familiarity with it. (In a very few cases, I have listed some books merely on the strength of my opinion of the author: all such books are clearly marked below, as throughout these lists, with a hash mark (#) before the title so you know what’s what.)
I don’t pretend that this discussion is a deep analysis. My intent is no more than to give you a rough idea of what kinds of tales these authors tell, how those tales are usually told, and what makes them worthy; in sum, to help you rank these authors (and the works by them listed here) on your personal literary “to do” list.
A Few Words About the “Other” Oz Authors
Regrettably, I have not yet had an opportunity to write an essay on these authors, but the “Other Resources” section below will lead you to some information about the “Notable Books” listed farther down this page.
Because these authors each had only a very small output of Oz books—one to at most three—it is easiest to research them by looking at the individual capsule reviews of their books at the extraordinarily well-designed Oz Wiki. Those reviews seem to me succinct and on point. And, while the plot recaps that start each review are interesting, the meat of each is in the “Background” section of its page (regrettably, one—Lucky Bucky—lacks that section).
Notable Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books by Oz: others **
(These are “canonical” Oz books (aka “The Famous Forty”, but see below) by authors other than L. Frank Baum or Ruth Plumly Thompson; there are numerous further Oz works that are “non-canonical” but close to the canon, plus a host of others ranging from well-meant but ill-made tributes to outright travesties.)
McGraw, Eloise Jarvis & Wagner, Lauren McGraw: Merry-Go-Round in Oz(The following three books by Sherwood Smith have been endorsed by the L. Frank Baum Family Trust as canonical, but are 21st century additions to the canon; some do not like them. The reviews suffice to greatly discourage me: modern teens with dysfunctional-family issues? In Oz? Really?)
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