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Royal Oz News 2015
12/24/15 Rinkitink Revision Due to the continuity problems inhering in Rinkitink in Oz, specifically the appearance (albeit extremely brief) of Trot which forces The Scarecrow of Oz (where she first comes to Oz) to take place prior to it, I've decided to err on the side of continuity and say that Trot is a historian error and does not actually appear in the story. This allows me to place Sky Island and The Scarecrow of Oz at a later date, which is more appropriate given that Button-Bright is very clearly not a six year old in either story. As a new version is being prepared, there's hope that it will adhere closer to Baum's original and lost story, King Rinkitink, and not feature Trot at all.
12/11/15 T-shirts For a limited time, The Royal Publisher of Oz is making T-shirts available of your favorite new books and images. Check them out here!
12/10/15 Toto Loses His Growl Plot synopsis and continuity notes are up for Gina Wickwar's Toto in Oz.
11/23/15 Making Friends in Oz As promised, The Royal Publisher of Oz is dedicated to keeping Oz alive and bringing you lost stories from years past. A new short story along these lines is up here. This one is probably unknown to most of you. It was unknown to me until I discovered it not long ago. It's called "Rix and His Friends in Oz," and it's an original script by Ann Seeger. Nothing is known of this author or even the year it was written. It comes from a typewritten manuscript, so appears to be pre-computer age. There's no biographical information whatsoever. It's a cute story, though, about a boy and his djinn who come to Oz, where they meet Dorothy and the Sawhorse. It takes place in the Quadling Country. Hope you enjoy it! Seeger wrote another script called "The Glass Cat of Oz," which will be posted in the coming week or so, which has to do with another revolt of Jinjur that Bungle stumbles upon in the Gillikin Country!
11/20/15 The High Kings and Queens of Oz A new section has been added to the Appendices, this time a timeline of the high kings and queens of Oz, starting in 1227 with Ozroar and ending in 1902 with Ozma. Check it out here!
11/17/15 Timeline Updates Due to the chronology of The Blue Emperor of Oz, which is dated 12 years after The Hidden Valley of Oz, the date of the latter story has had to be moved up to 1930. There is no conflict with placing it in an earlier period, though it does necessitate moving The Raggedies in Oz and The Wicked Witch of Oz earlier as well. In The Blue Emperor of Oz, it's noted that Ozroar, the titular Blue Emperor was abducted and enchanted by Mombi 50 years earlier. In its original placement, this was problematic, as it landed that event in 1909. Yet the narrative made it clear that this 50 year date occurred during the christening of Prince Pompadore, an event that according to The Purple Prince of Oz, occurred in 1892. Fifty years from that brings the events of Blue Emperor to 1942. 12 years earlier is 1930.
11/16/15 Kabumpo and the Rain King In The Silver Princess of Oz and The Purple Prince of Oz, Kabumpo comes to the edge of the Deadly Desert, only to be rescued by the Rainbow or rainstorm. Just cooincidence? Nathan M. DeHoff went to find out why and came back with this previously untold story, "Kabumpo and the Rain King," available here!
11/13/15 Merry Goes Around The plot synopsis and continuity notes for Merry Go Round in Oz is up here. "Chapter 3" has moved to 1963. "Betsy Bobbin in Yartralia: An Oz Tale" has moved to 1941. I also better delineated Jinnicky's prior history, as revealed in "Glinda and the Red Jinn" (Oziana 1977) and "Gludwig and the Red Hair," (from The Tales of Yot, and The Silver Princess in Oz: Empty-Grave Retrofit Edition) which takes place in 1760 and just prior to and after The Silver Princess in Oz.
10/28/15 More Updates Added an upcoming Mombi story to The Marvelous Land of Oz time-period, called "The Witch's Mother of Oz," by Paul Dana. I also changed the date of Ozma/Tippetarius' switcheroo to 1887, which is one of two possible dates (the other being 1873, where I'd formerly had it) based on Tippetarius' year of birth, dates that are arrived at from the first book of The Seven Blue Mountains of Oz trilogy. I think five years prior to the Wizard obtaining baby Ozma makes more sense at this time, rather than two years after Mombi was deposed by Locasta (in 1871, just before Oscar arrives).
10/27/15 Minor Updates Not a lot of time these days, but moved Red Reera the Yookoohoo and the Enchanted Easter Eggs of Oz up fifty years to 1940 (and placed it's flashback in the appropriate year) in preparation for the upcoming The Yookoohoos of Oz, which will deal with Reera's son. Also added Adam Nicolai's short stories from The Tales of Yot. Currently also working on synopsizing Yankee in Oz.
0/3/15 Dark Desert Added some more books to the Deadly Desert, Dark Side, Parodies and Parallel Oz sections. Thanks to Cynthia Hanson for sending over a list! There are other books yet to be added, some that I want to investigate first before committing them to a section. That's going to take some time, however.
10/1/15 Purple Prince Prequel Nathan DeHoff's "The Banishment of Faleero" is now up in the New Oz Tales section!
Still working on editing Footnotes 7 (halfway there), getting through the mainline timeline, and have other Deadly Desert stories to add. But it's going to be a slower process as I have other pressing matters taking my time that must be dealt with first.
9/1/15 Sorcerers, Silence, Stones and Soob I'm just spoiling you guys with stories this week! The next one is the classic adventure "The Search for Soob," by Nathan M. DeHoff, in which the Wizard and Number Nine are troubled by the discovery that the Silence Stone is no longer working. Enter the Wogglebug, Himself the Elf, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse and Scraps who must travel across the Shifting Sands to the mysterious realm of Nimenvell to find the lost sorcerer.
8/31/15 Moon Madness Nathan DeHoff's newest story "From Oz to the Moon," a sequel to The Enchanted Island of Oz is now up! David reunites with his camel friend Humpty and King Rupert, who uses his magic vest to take them (and the rabbit Yutu) to the moon! There they discover that the Man in the Moon's wife has disappeared!
Also, continuing to spruce and edit the site. I've got more Deadly Desert titles to add (thanks again to Cynthia's extensive list), but with limited time I need to first focus on older areas in need of proofreading.
8/28/15 Enchanting The plot synopsis and continuity notes for Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Enchanted Island of Oz is now available here.
8/26/15 Evil Alliances! Another new Oz tale is up for your reading pleasure! Nathan M. DeHoff's revised "Alliance of the Elementals" sees Ruggedo up to his old tricks! In Tik-Tok of Oz, Tititi-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin, banished Ruggedo from the Nome Kingdom, but Kaliko, the new king, allowed him to stay. In The Magic Of Oz, Ruggedo is no longer living in the Nome Kingdom. This story, which takes place soon after Tik-Tok of Oz, explains why Kaliko's pardon was revoked.
Also, the sprucing continues as I fix my many mistakes in Footnotes 5 and I clarify and expand my discussion of the various Wicked Witches in the Appendices.
8/18/15 More Sprucing I've been meaning to get around to proofreading the site's footnotes, a task that's been long overdue, and includes fixing mistakes, clarifying difficult passages, as well as adding links. I completed Footnotes 4, but there's a long way to go yet before this project is done. Update: I've also finally added the anthologies Oz Reimagined (to the Deadly Desert) and Shadows of the Emerald City (to the Dark Side of Oz)
8/15/15 Sprucing No big news to report, just further sprucing up the look of the new site. Hope you're all enjoying it! More new stories to come in the days/weeks ahead! Always remember: Oz is forever!
8/6/15 The Royal Timeline of Oz Has a New Home! For years, The Royal Timeline of Oz was part of several online timelines called the timelineuniverse.net. While it seemed like a good idea back then, I've long sought to take oztimeline.net out from under that umbrella and place it under its own domain (as I did with my Star Wars timeline). For those of you who've bookmarked this page, please change it now to www.oztimeline.net. The old URL: www.timelineuniverse.net/Oz/Ozmap.htm will no longer work. And you'll notice too that I made some cosmetic changes to the various pages. It was time for a bit of a facelift. All of the information remains intact and will continue to be updated in the months and years ahead.
Aside from the site's cosmetic changes, I've added more titles and synopses to the Deadly Desert section. Thanks again to Cynthia Hanson for the help! Incidentally, Cynthia's three Wogglebug novels can now be found at affordable prices in black & white editions on Amazon.com. Cynthia has started a Pubslush campaign to raise money to pay her picture-books illustrator: https://pubslush.com/project/7162.
There are still quite a few entries that need to be added to the site, and some that are waiting for me to read so that I can figure out where they best fit. Stay tuned for further updates.
To commemorate the new site location, I've added a newly expanded and revised story by author Nathan M. DeHoff: "Betsy Bobbin in Yartralia"! Betsy and Carter Green, the Vegetable Man of Oz, embark upon an unusual quest to free a race from slavery in Yartralia. But when Betsy discovers that the enslaved in question are goblins, she is faced with a dilemma that will pit her against the King of Yartralia, who seeks to marry her to his son!
7/26/15 The Haunted Castle of Oz... Bigger and More Haunted Than Ever! Marcus Mebes has revised and expanded his original novella The Haunted Castle of Oz into a full-length novel, with more than half of the book containing new material, new interior artwork by Kamui Ayami and a new cover by artist Jaun Raza. The book will be released by The Royal Publisher of Oz in hardcover and trade paperback in the coming months. Stay tuned here for more info!
Additionally, the ever prolific Paul Dana completed the third book in the "Button Bright and Ojo Adventure" series, tentatively called The Immortal Longings of Oz, which will deal with the changing events in Ev and the desire of King Everdo's daughter to attain immortality at all costs. Paul has also begun work on another book in the series, this one involving Grandma Natch and the extended Yookoohoo clan!
7/21/15 Into the Desert Thanks to Cynthia Hanson for providing several lists of new books that I've finally got around to placing in either the Deadly Desert, Parallel History, Dark Side or Parodies sections. Cynthia's newest book, Mr. Wogglebug's Second Time Around, is available on Amazon and other online book stores.
I also redid the Deadly Desert section so that stories are properly placed by publication date, or where possible, by chronological date.
Finally, I've been working with Marcus Mebes on the expansion and revision of his novella The Haunted Castle of Oz. You can't begin to imagine where this story goes now! It's wild and boasts a large cast of characters that Marcus handles with deft care! Without spoilers, I can only say that you can expect to see Notta Bit More, Zim Greenleaf, Maggie, Tommy Kiwkstep and his partner (a story that will be revealed by Jared Davis in the upcoming Lost Tales of Oz), Handy Mandy and more!
7/2/15 The Fall of Faleero The plot synopsis and continuity notes for Mildred Palmer's The Red Jinn in Oz is up. Also available is a new appendix entry, "Sky Countries in Nonestica."
6/8/15 No Ranch in this Hidden Valley I finally got up a synopsis and continuity notes for Rachel Cosgrove Payes' The Hidden Valley of Oz.
5/21/15 Jenny Jump Jumps Again! A new and expanded version of Nathan M. DeHoff's short story "Jenny Jump's Adventures in Time and Space" is at last available right here! In the new version, Jenny not only goes through time, but ends up discovering an important part of her own past history! This story also ties into the story by L. Frank Baum's friend Emerson Hough, who wrote the children's fantasy The King of Gee-Whiz in 1906 after a failed attempt by the two men to turn it into a play.
3/16/15 Ruggedo Goes to School The new version of Nathan M. DeHoff's "Ruggedo and the School of Magic" is now up and available to read here! This tale not only solves the dilemma of how Ruggedo learnt magic between the time of The Emerald City of Oz and Tik-Tok of Oz, but how the Magic Belt, which in Ozma of Oz, could not affect wood, came to do so.
Also added is the times when Glinda placed the invisible barrier around Oz, removed it, and placed it again, a situation that's best explained in the continuity notes for the newly written summary of Jack Snow's The Shaggy Man of Oz.
3/2/15 More New Oz Tales Nathan M. DeHoff's "Reddy and Willing: The Adventures of Jair in Oz" and "The Wizard of Aurissau" are now available here to read. The first tale tells the fascinating back story of the Reddies (from Jack Pumpkinhead in Oz) as well as provides more untold stories of the wicked witches of Jinxland (from The Scarecrow of Oz). The second an untold adventure of Oscar Diggs after he leaves Oz by balloon during the events of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Adolf Hitler in Oz is making the rounds in various newspapers and sites! 12 copies of the limited signed edition are left, and when they're gone, they're gone for good, though the deluxe hardcover and trade paperbacks will remain available.
1/26/15 New Oz Tales Nathan M. DeHoff's "The Triumph of the Wicked Witch" is now available to read here. This is but the first of many stories coming down the pike.
1/22/15 Advanced Orders! Limited Edition Signed Deluxe Hardcovers of Adolf Hitler in Oz
Sold on a first-come, first-served basis, these hardcover illustrated books, limited to just 15 copies, including one additional illustration from artist Patricio Carbajal, and signed by author Sam Sackett, are being sold directly through me for $75.00, plus $4.00 shipping. Drop me a line here to inquire about availability. These are preorders. The books will be available around the end of February.
Standard trade paperbacks and hardcovers will be available in the coming week.
1/12/15 New Ozmapolitan: Hitler Attacks Oz! Ozma Refuses to Use Force! With the newest book from The Royal Publisher of Oz out in paperback, a new Ozmapolitan has been released to accompany it. Adolf Hitler in Oz is currently available from Lulu.com, and will be followed in a few weeks by general release across all online booksellers, such as Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com. A deluxe hardcover edition with eleven color planes and exclusive "stained glass" wraparound dust-jacket will also be available shortly. A signed limited edition deluxe version will also be available with an additional illustration! More news to come!
See here for the new Ozmapolitan 2014!
1/12/15 Polishing Cleaning up the footnotes pages so that they're more readable, updating the font, spacing and tables. Enjoy!
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