First-novelist/polymath Gardner (essays:The Night Is Large, 1996, etc.) undertakes a sequel to L. Frank Baum’s Oz story (on the occasion of its 100th birthday) and comes up with a winner. Using simple prose and similarly simple dialogue, Gardner constructs a riddle and solves it: Producer Samuel Gold has filmed The Emerald City of Oz because he truly believes Oz is a real place and so has sent an E-mail to Glinda, the good witch who rules Oz, asking if Dorothy and some her friends might not like to visit Earth again and go on tour for his animated movie. The big problem: Glinda has removed Oz to a parallel universe, away from the influx of humans. So how can Dorothy get from Oz to Earth and back again? Only Professor Wogglebug, T.E.H.M. (Thoroughly Educated Highly Magnified) can manage this, which he does by having Ku-Klip (who made the Tin Woodman) build two life-size Moebius strips to form a Klein Bottle, which will deposit the travelers on Earth. On the way, they find the Entrance to Wonderland irresistible and have a chat with the White Rabbit, then meet Tenniel’s pink caterpillar, the Ugly Duchess (actually a sweet-tempered, gorgeous young woman wearing a rubber mask because Lewis Carroll’s readers expect it of her), the White Knight, Humpty Dumpty, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and other Wonderland folk. When the Klein Bottle is stolen, Private Detective Sheerluck Brown (a large brown bear in a deerstalker cap) recovers it from the giant Big Jim Foote. Arriving in moonlit Central Park, they are interviewed by Time and the New York Times’s science editor, then appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show. When they are beset by mobsters, Glinda saves them by teleporting Waters of Oblivion to Earth. Before returning home, Dorothy & Co. tour the bookstores for Martin Gardner’s Visitors from Oz. Deserves the Cosmotic Greatheart Medal of Oz from the Wizard. (N.B.: Probably not harmful for children.)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-19353-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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