Dorothy Gale doesn’t believe in ghosts, yet the ghostly voices of her deceased parents seem to invade her dreams – coming from a treasured photo of them, a tintype that she had lost in Oz after the tornado.  If these voices are only a dream, she worries, maybe Oz was, too.

 

Many things anger Dorothy.   She desperately wants to go back to Oz and find the picture and so prove to herself that Oz does exist, yet there is no way to return. She is being teased by kids at school after foolishly telling them about Oz.  She is increasingly annoyed by others treating her as “only a mere slip of a girl” – while when in Oz she had done so many amazing things. Besides, she reasons, we are entering the twentieth century and women may even get the right to vote!  She wants to be treated "even-steven" with the boys, but even her friend Tim seems unable to understand. 

 

Dorothy looks forward to Halloween, but besides carving a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern there is little to do to celebrate it on an isolated Kansas farm. She is bored with nothing more than "womanly chores" to do.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to visit the land of Oz for Halloween?  But she can find no way.

 

Then, during a dream on Halloween night, her parents -- seemingly inside the lost picture -- tell her that she is urgently needed in Oz and must return.  They warn of great danger, then instruct her how to get there.  

 

Upon returning to Oz, Dorothy finds the Ozian Halloween lasts an entire witch-week of thirteen days.  Mysteries abound.  Why does she arrive in Gillikin Land, where she has never been before?  Where is that evil that her father warned her about?  Who is this mysterious boy with purple hair, who seems to be Tim from Kansas in disguise?  Where can the treasured tintype of her parents be?  And how can it seem to talk to her?

 

With Toto along with her, she meets old friends like Scarecrow, Tin-man, and the once-Cowardly Lion.  As she tries to locate the lost tintype and discover why she was called to Oz, she recruits new friends like the mysterious boy, her Kansas pumpkin magically brought to life (now named Punk N. Hedd, Esq.), a talking sawhorse named Stubs, a bat named Flopp, and a moose named Tippecanoe. In her quest, Dorothy and Toto confront nightmarish obstacles such as an attack by Kadrakahs, fierce fire-breathing beings alien to Oz, a maze-filled castle that many believe is haunted, a rising of the living-dead from a graveyard, and a very untrustworthy Wizard in his hideout in the Gillik Alps.  Ultimately, she arrives back on the Yellow Brick Road, but this time to face evil forces in what becomes a battle to save Oz.

   

 

Price :    US  $ 14.95  plus Calif. sales tax and shipping costs

Paperback --  553 pages

Orders via :  Alpimaroz@gmail.com

 

 

Sources of Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns

 

As the title indicates, this book is a Halloween story featuring Dorothy Gale, an orphan living with her aunt and uncle on a remote Kansas farm in 1900.  Our Dorothy is, of course, famous from the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), a book published in 1900.

 

Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns is in effect a sequel to that book, and to that book alone.

 

Our story attempts to retain the spirit of Baum’s imagination and the fantasy land revealed in that first Oz book. However, this book draws some basic lines of action and even dialog from other books by Baum, particularly The Marvellous Land of Oz, a book that he published in 1904.  Small bits of story and dialogue have been purposefully extracted from Baum's later books,  for example The Road to Oz (1909).

 

Most importantly, this book leads the reader into a new and larger story about Oz and a mysterious and magic-ridden world called Alpimar of which it is a part.  In the terms used in fantasy and sci-fi today, the world called Alpimar might be called an "alternative Earth," set in an "alternative dimension," where even the course of time is somewhat askew.  But Dorothy Gale uses no such scientific words in trying to understand her experience.  She is, of course, a small girl living on a remote Kansas farm in the year 1900 -- the year Einstein graduated from school in Switzerland.

 

Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a production of those last years of the nineteenth century, copyrighted in 1899 and published in 1900.  The storylines of the later Baum books that featured Dorothy in Oz often rambled through a sequence of loosely related adventures, more in the earlier style of Lewis Carroll’s stories of Alice in Wonderland than in the spirit of twentieth century fantasy series.  There was little or no character development -- personal growth -- in Baum’s Oz series, while such is an important  feature of most of the more recent fantasy series involving young protagonists.

 

Our book does not attempt to be consistent with all the later Oz stories by Baum — an impossible task in fact.  The books very often contradict each other in how Oz is depicted.  Baum never hesitated to make changes himself, and even as early as 1902, he had in his stage version replaced Toto by a pet cow named Imogene.

 

Nothing in Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns comes from any of the Oz books that were later written by other persons.  Nothing is derived from any of the many stage plays, motion pictures, or television shows that have appeared using Oz themes.

 

 

Comment on the Alpimar Series of Oz Books:

 

Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns is more than just a Halloween book about Oz.  It is the first part of a forthcoming Alpimar series, several of which are already in manuscript form.  The next to appear will be Christmas in Oz -- and Beyond.  More information on the Alpimar series will later be found on the Alpimaroz.com webpage.

 

In our effort to produce an Oz series for the twenty-first century, we have endeavored to make the storyline and many elements of style more in keeping with contemporary trends in the genre of fantasy.  Thus our tale is more complex and more tightly consistent than the series by Baum.  The book has 553 pages, for example, far more than any Oz story by Baum.  We have tried, however, to keep as much of the Baum spirit as possible and thus to present an expanded but still authentic view of his fantasy land to a new generation of readers. 

 

Yet in Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns you will find what is in many ways a new land of Oz, set in a whole new alternative world where magic reigns -- not science and technology. This larger world of fantasy is called Alpimar, in which Oz is a land surrounded by deadly deserts and an impassable sea.  The map below will show how our Oz follows that of Baum's first Oz book, but it will reveal new dimensions as well.  In fact, our forthcoming Christmas story will also take us far to the north of the area portrayed below, over almost impassable icy deserts toward -- you guessed it -- Alpimar's North Pole.

 

 

NOTE to Judy Garland fans:

 

As stated, nothing in Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns comes from any Oz-related book written by anyone other than L. Frank Baum.  Nothing comes from any of the stage plays or motion pictures based on Oz themes.

 

The above statement means that nothing in this book reflects anything original to the famous motion picture staring Judy Garland (1922-1969).  That 1939 film differed in very significant ways from Baum’s book -- most especially by being set more than a generation later, and by making Oz nothing but a dream by Dorothy.  Oz is a real place in the Baum books, as it is in ours.  The Judy Garland movie also featured hired hands on Uncle Henry’s farm, and a mean old lady making trouble in Kansas.  None of this was in Baum's book.  Much was left out in that film as well, including the Good Witch of the North, the land of porcelain figures, the hammer-head people, et al.

 

Those who have only seen Oz-based movies and have never read the original book, should remember that Baum’s story was written in 1899, and was about a small orphan girl on a very poor farm, and she was considerably younger than Judy Garland was in the film.  Our Dorothy is a blonde, like Baum’s, and she was actually carried to the marvelous land of Oz by a tornado, and while there, she vanquished two cruel witches with the help of a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion.  And she returned home with the help of a pair of magical silver shoes (not ruby slippers).

 

The first chapter of our book sets the stage for Dorothy’s Halloween adventure.  It will remind Judy Garland fans of what was and was not in the original story as written by Baum.  It also provides additional background consistent with that book, but now part of our new Alpimar series. Significantly, our story tells where and how Dorothy Gale became an orphan -- later we even learn why -- but you must read our story to begin unraveling the mystery behind these facts. 

 

 NOTE to Oz fans:

 

In addition to those who think of Oz only in terms of the Judy Garland film, there are those who are fans of everything Ozian, or at least the basic corpus of fourteen Oz books by L. Frank Baum:

  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

   The Marvellous Land of Oz

   Ozma of Oz

   Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

   The Road to Oz

   The Emerald City of Oz

   The Patchwork Girl of Oz

   Tik-Tok of Oz

   The Scarecrow of Oz

   Rinkitink of Oz

   The Lost Princess of Oz

   The Tin Woodsman of Oz

   The Magic of Oz

   Glinda of Oz

These works are intertwined to a degree with two other books by Baum, The Enchanted Island of Yew and The Magical Monarch of Mo.

 

The Alpimar series uses all these works by Baum, and other Baum works for that matter, as potential source material for genuine Ozian adventures and Baum-style dialogue. But Oz fans must remember that the Alpimar series builds its plot only on the first book  -- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum and brilliantly illustrated by W. W. Denslow.

 

Thus Oz enthusiasts will have to empty their minds not only of the various Oz films and stage plays but also of the plot lines and assertions of all Baum’s works but his most famous tale -- that which tells the story of the tornado that carries Dorothy off to Oz.

 

This may be difficult for some dedicated Oz fans, for they see the series as a whole. But perhaps not, since they will  realize that the Oz corpus is not highly consistent and the books often give variant views of the nature of Oz.  Do people die in Oz? Is money used in Oz? Is Munchkin Land east or west of the Emerald City?  Etc.  Moreover, the Baum series lacks the single underlying, developing plot that is more typical of later fantasy series such as those by J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, or J. K. Rowling.  The goal of the Alpimar series is to create a new,  vibrant, and complex Oz story that has its roots in Baum’s work and spirit, but tells a tale more in the style of twenty-first century fantasy.

 

Oz fans must also not be offended to see some bit that they recognize as from a later Baum book appearing, perhaps in a much altered form, to create part of a new Alpimar storyline.  Such borrowing is purposefully done to infuse into this series as much as possible of the spirit of Baum’s work.

 

While the Alpimar series builds upon the original Oz book, it adds to that story.  Moreover, in a few cases, hardly visible in Halloween in Oz, it re-adjusts some details. For example, the famous illustrations by W. W. Denslow in the original book, show Dorothy as very young, perhaps only six, but surely not over nine.  Halloween in Oz makes her older  (though not as old as Judy Garland in the movie.)  She is eleven years old when orphaned and twelve when she goes to Oz.  The later age better reflects what is seen in the illustrations by John R. Neill, who illustrated all the later Oz books by Baum.  Also the original book has everyone in the Emerald City wearing green glasses.  This burden is disposed of in later Baum books -- and in Halloween in Oz as well.  Despite such adjustments, the overall effort in the Alpimar series is to be as consistent as possible with the original book.                                                           

 

NOTE to Harry Potter fans:

 

While Baum’s Oz books remained among the most popular children’s books during much of the twentieth century, many new fantasy series appeared with similar features.  Several of the authors of these series acknowledged the influence of the Oz books on their work, and yet the newer series tended to be more complex, more inwardly consistent, and with an overall plot that was far more sharply focused.  The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, which crossed into the twenty-first century, is a major example of this.  The Harry Potter books had followed an evolving tradition of best-seller twentieth century books that created new magical worlds -- marked by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.

 

Many features of the Harry Potter series are similar to those of Baum’s Oz series.  Both tell the story of a pre-teen orphan. In both stories, the child is being raised by a humdrum aunt and uncle.  Both stories center on a lonely child’s escape into an alternative magical world -- a place more attractive, yet very dangerous.  In that new world, heroic tasks are required of the child -- things that the adults of that world cannot do.  Both stories feature witches who may be either good or bad. Both children have adult mentors with great magic powers who help them -- but are not always there to do so (Good Witch and Headmaster).  Dorothy Gale has her black dog, Toto; Harry Potter has his snowy owl, Hedwig.  Both series have forbidding forests, magical mirrors, and fighting trees with branches that hit and grasp.  Both series have animals that can speak and others that cannot.  

 

There are evil forces in both storylines -- and these take the form of persons highly adept in magic -- and it is the child protagonist who is uniquely endowed to destroy them.

 

Major differences between the Baum and Rowling stories include the fact that Baum never explains how Dorothy was orphaned, while the way in which Harry lost his parents was key to the entire Harry Potter series.  The environment differs, Dorothy ranges over the countryside of a magical land, while much of the Potter series was centered on a school for wizards and witches -- a fantasy equivalent of Tom Brown's School Days (1857) by Thomas Hughes.

 

The fuller elaboration of plotting in the Harry Potter books was typical of most of the well-known serial fantasy books of this type written during the twentieth century. Halloween in Oz does to that extent attempt to follow contemporary styles, rather than that of Baum’s Oz series.

~~~~~ 

The Direction of the Alpimar Series:

 

Oz has become a unique part of world folklore over the last hundred years, and it should remain that in the years to come.  During the same period, the Halloween holiday has been a growing and evolving cultural tradition as well.  Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns unites those two traditions.

 

Yet this is more than just a Halloween book, it is the opening salvo of a new series. 

 

                                                                                                    

Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns is BOOK ONE in the Alpimar Oz series.

 

As mentioned, the next scheduled book in the series is Christmas in Oz -- and Beyond, due to appear in 2008.  And later we expect a prequel to the series that will take us back a generation and reveal more of the how and why of Dorothy's amazing adventures.

 

Alpimar books is an imprint of Whitfield & Dodd Publications. The Editor of Whitfield & Dodd Publications is Ann E. LeBlanc.  The Director of Alpimar Books is Carol Marie Nelson.

 

More about Alpimar's Oz series will be found in an appendix to Halloween in Oz: Dorothy Returns -- one written in Ozian runes.  What are Ozian runes?  You'll have to ask Arcanix, the Minister of Secrets in Winkie Land.  But this is a table similar to the one that Arcanix provided Dorothy.

For a time after this, they rode along in silence. Soon they were

in a forested area. Large yellowish-green trees blocked out most

of the light and twisted black limbs seem to reach out for them.

Stubs had to slow down even further since the trees blocked the

path in places.

 

“Not a very inviting place.” said Dorothy. Suddenly, she heard a

mighty roar, one that made shivers go up and down her spine. It

was all-too familiar.

 

“Kadrakahs,” Scarecrow whispered, his voice trembling. “Quiet

now. I’ve found out lots about them since we came across them

when you were here last, Dorothy. Everybody think about water,

how wet you just were. Kadrakahs are mind-readers, but can’t get

to your mind if you’re thinking about water. Lakes, rivers — keep

at it.”

 

“But why water?” asked Dorothy.

 

“They’re fire-breathers, you know, got fire burning right inside

their bellies. Water would put it out—kill them.” Scarecrow shuddered,

“But all that fire’s very dangerous to someone like me, made

of straw.”

 

“What do they look like, and do they eat pumpkins?” asked

Punk.

 

“Kadrakahs are great big, yellow and black, dragon-like beasts

with heads like tigers,” Dorothy whispered. “They breathe out fire,

have poison stingers in their tails like scorpions. And my impression

was that they would eat just about anything that came their

way. Probably roast it first.”

 

The forest began to rustle behind them. Dorothy urgently

reminded Punk and Stubs, “Think about water, you two!

Lakes, ponds, any wet thing.” She thought of a postcard

she had seen of Niagara Falls, and tried to envision all the

water pouring over the falls there.

 

“Rivers, streams, soggy straw,” said Scarecrow. “Old Wurstella

brought the kadrakahs here, I’ve heard, to help protect her domain.

Mud puddles, fountains, drenching rain,” he added.

 

Behind them they could make out the snarling tiger-like heads

of two kadrakahs breaking through the forest towards them,

searching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Danger!

 

      Kadrakahs!

 

      Think WET!

 

 

 

 

                In the opposite direction was a trail of sorts leading to

rocky ground. Stubs moved down it as quietly as he could. “The

kadrakahs must not have seen us,” Dorothy thought. Then she

spied a series of caves along a cliff to their right and signaled Stubs

to head in that direction. “It’s hard to keep thinking of water,” she

thought. “Missouri River,” she went on in her mind, “snow drifts

melting, Atlantic Ocean, bath time, mountain springs, watering the

horses ...”

 

Stubs and those riding him moved into the darkness of one of

the caves. Dorothy and the others dismounted, she told Toto to

stay near. To make sure that Stubs and Punk were properly thinking

of water and the like, Dorothy and Scarecrow took turns whispering

words related to water, so that all could hear. Since Stubs and

Punk were rather new to the world, Dorothy decided that she

should pick words and phases that related to their recent and usually

troublesome experiences with rivers. It became tedious,

though, waiting in the dark and trying to think constantly of water.

 

“How long should we wait? Rainwater, chamber pots, puddles,”

thought Dorothy. “How can we be sure that they have gone away?

Floodwaters, South Seas, Ohio River, canals, dishwater, lots of

dishwater.”

 

Suddenly a flickering light glowed in the cave, and a scaly arm

ending in gleaming yellow claws, reached into the cave. With a

quick flick, it grabbed Toto and snatched him away. Dorothy

screamed. She was livid with anger, and, never stopping to reason,

she ran to the mouth of the cave and ended up face to face with a

startled kadrakah. ...