Return to Oz: Sky Island by L. Frank Baum

Captain Jack is back! My review of Big Finish's new box set about missing adventures in the life of Jack Harkness is up at USF.

Trade paperback, 288 pages
Published 2002 (originally 1912)
Acquired February 2017
Read March 2017

Sky Island: Being the Further Exciting Adventures of Trot and Cap'n Bill after Their Visit to the Sea Fairies
by L. Frank Baum
illustrated by John R. Neill

Like The Sea Fairies, I hadn’t read this until prompted to do so by the folks at the Oz blog Burzee; unlike The Sea Fairies, I really enjoyed the experience. It feels more planned than a lot of Baum’s novels; so many of his books are about getting from Point A to Point B, and even when they’re technically not about trying to get somewhere they sort of work that in there anyway, like the excursion to the outside world in Marvelous Land or the tour of Oz in Emerald City or the various searches in Lost Princess. (Some of these do it better than others; I enjoy Marvelous Land, whereas in Emerald City the travel stuff is just a diversion from the invasion plot.) But Sky Island is very much about the governments and people of Sky Island in a way that makes it more focused than almost any other of Baum’s fantasies I can recollect. It’s also tremendous fun—Baum is inventive and clever and whimsical and suspenseful in just the right proportions, and what Trot has to do here actually matters, both to her group and to the people of the island.

I agree with Nick and Sarah at Burzee that Baum’s doing something political here, but I too don't know what, and I actually like that it’s hard to map on something specific; Baum’s attempts at social commentary can be heavy-handed at times, but this one is engaging. I really liked the stuff about democracy and poverty and such, and it was thought-provoking even if I didn’t quite know what he was trying to say.

I enjoyed Cap’n Bill in this one a lot, even if he was somewhat ineffectual; the way he takes charge of the military is fun even if he does end up captured ASAP. Baum always seems to have it out for militaries! (This reminded me a lot of some of the stuff in Ozma of Oz.)

The Dover edition of this book does have the color plates, for which I’m very grateful—this feels like some of Neill’s best work to me! But maybe I just think that because I actually don’t have very many Oz books that include color illustrations, so of course this one stands out. The cloud journey on the umbrella looks great, and I always like the way Neill draws Polychrome.

Next Week: Back to Oz, as we meet Scraps, The Patchwork Girl of Oz!