A Barnstormer in Oz

1919



We return to Oz courtesy of Phillip Jose Farmer. Barnstormer falls somewhere between the convoluted sequels of the original books and the adult-skewed Wicked series with PJ's take on the land of Oz. Farmer sets the groundrules of his version of Oz quickly: Oz is real, but so are the books by Baum, who interviewed Dorothy and turned her story into a successful series of fantasy books for children. Where the original books describe Oz as a hidden land existing in the real world, Farmer drops a dimensional portal to transport his protagonist, Dorothy's grown son.

Having read the Wicked series so recently, I couldn't help but compare the two. They are both similiar in that they attempt to flesh out Oz with a grown-up dose of realism, and a blatant sexuality. But the differences are too great. You can tell that McGuire was either completely unaware of this prior version (likely) or had read it and set out to be as contrary as possible (possible). Glenda is very different, Ozma is non-existant, the politics are topsy-turvy, the talking animals are different, the Scarecrow is very different... you get the idea.

How to reconcile this in a crossover context? Like always- parallel universes of Oz! I'd feel more nerdy about this issue except that Farmer is the Forefather of Crossover Fiction. If there can be 6,667 versions of Earth as we know it, constantly diverging, merging and experiencing crisis that require artistic retcons, why not multiple realities of Oz, disparate enough to have their own warped versions of storybook and adulterized realities (let's not even get into The Wiz or Tin Man!)

The best part of old-school seventies writers like PJ Farmer is his tendancy to dissect every nuance of every character and situation. Sometimes this gets too carried away, though, and bogs down the pace of the story too much, as I've noted in my Riverworld reviews. However, in Barnstormer it is put to good use, as Farmer puts a microscope on the existance of Dorothy's friends. Just how is a talking scarecrow and tin man possible, even in a world of magic? Their existance is an anomoly, a fact that all other Oz historians choose to ignore.

Despite my inability to merge this Oz with other versions of Oz, or accept it as the real Oz as PJ might like, it's a great book with a nice fusion of post WWI warfare and magic, and is a great follow-up to Wicked versus the lame sequals from it's own author.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go

So you are Sir Richard Francis Burton. The date is October 20, 1890, and you are dying. You slip from consciousness into the cold grip of certain absolute death. And you die. Then you wake up into an alien levitating orb scene of a dark eternity of floating tubes full of humans. And suddenly, you- the reader- realize Neo's waking scene in the Matrix was written in the sixties by Phillip Jose Farmer.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is the Hugo award winning first novel in the Riverworld series, and is fascinating to me on multiple levels.

1) This book was first recommended to me in seventh grade by my homeroom teacher, Hal H. He also gave me a cassette tape that had Remain in Light and Fear of Music on it. The man had very good taste. But honestly, I picked up the book at the Eugene library and just couldn't see myself getting into it. Too adult for 13-year old me? Yeah, that sums it up. But I never forgot about it.

2: Cool name. Certainly the rest of Riverworld is a let-down in comparison- just in the titles.

3. Historical fiction. Not something I had ever thought I'd be interested until a few years ago. But not just historical fiction- historical science fiction. Still not a niche I had thought I'd be into, but now am slightly obssesed about.

4> Crossover fiction. I have mentioned Farmer's Wold Newton family before and while Riverworld is not strictly part of that specific fictional universe, the format betrays PJ's fondness for fiction and crossovers.

5+ An elaboration on number 4. PJ Farmer does in this series something that is a favorite conceit of authors- perhaps all writers. Inserting themselves as a character, usually the main character. Most protagonists in most stories are thinly veiled alter egos of the author. But Farmer uses the plot (number 6) as a device to have authors in a crossover universe in which they may interact with each other regardless of era or historical actuality. In addition to some of these larger than life authors there are also real-life historical people who have inspired much great myth and fantasy. A great example is the romantic foil Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland.


6- So what happens next to old Dick Burton, the famous explorer who traveled the Nile, snuck into Mecca disguised and translated the karma sutra? He woke up by the side of a river, naked and in the body of himself as a perfect young man in his twenties. He is surrounded by many others in the exact same state. Not just a lot of people- everyone who ever lived on earth ever. The rest of the series is an often roundabout series of adventures as the more inquisitive and adventuresome products of the human race battle for power but more importantly to uncover the secrets of the alien world they discover themselves on for... eternity?

Well, this stumped my timeline. The actual era is not revealed until the very end of the series, and still remains obscure. I think that even if I hadn't been shying away from spoilers I still would've been unable to find anything online that reveals that particular fact. Even to assume "as far as possible in the future" doesn't really narrow it down for me: My timeline extends to 6,400,000 AD. So is it before or after that? After? Really?

I chose to kick it back from Burton's perspective. Although much of the series features Samual Clemens as the main character, the very start of the series is Burton's death- 1890. That's where I figured I would peg, partly just because I was anxious to read it. But it was also fun to come from all of that old Victorian fiction and have someone straight from that era experience people from the nineteen seventies and beyond.

Well, you made it this far through my long winded ramblings about this book, now you want a review? Obviously I wouldn't have so much to say about it if I didn't like it. The series overall has it's ups and downs, but I won't review each book in this forum. Suffice it to say that when read through, there is a general payoff as secrets are revealed and the layers of the mostly primitive Riverworld are slowly uncovered to reveal the alien tech capable of resurrecting the entire human race.

Farmer is the type of author who really gets off on having his characters spend a lot of time musing and pondering. Working through every possible angle to every problem they encounter. At times this mystery versus logic process is fun, but at other times it bogs down the pace unforgivably. Those who stick to it will eventually get to some cool sci-fi stuff with some cool stories on the way there.

I peeked at YouTube for some bits from the 2003 TV series and the 2010 mini-series coming out soon. Both versions seem super mediocre. Not even good as parody. Check it out if you want. Both are clearly influenced by the books instead of being a true adaptation. The new one has actors from other popular sci-fi shows, a gimmick which is either brilliant or a cheap ploy to capture the fanboy audience. Guess which this is...

In conclusion- I LOVE this series, and strongly recommend it to the three people who read this blog and are highly interested by my posts.