Synopsis:
13 original stories of dark fantasy inspired by the classic tales of L. Frank Baum and the land of Oz, from the masters of fantasy and science fiction, including M. R. Carey, Christina Henry and Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Journey beyond the yellow brick road, click your heels together and enter the dark heart of the tornado… if you dare.
Join the award-winning Marie O’Regan & Paul Kane as they bring together some of genre fiction’s bestselling and acclaimed authors as they explore the wild imagination of L. Frank Baum and his wonderful Land of Oz.
Featuring stories by:
Simon R. Green
Caitlin Rozakis
Louise Carey
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Ian Whates
M. R. Carey
Paul Magrs
Delilah S. Dawson
Robert Shearman
Stark Holborn
Christina Henry
Una McCormack
Jonathan Maberry
Review:
Don’t let the bright green cover fool you on the short story anthology Land of Oz — these are dark fantasy tales, even verging on dystopian sci-fi or horror in some cases. Not that there isn’t magic or whimsy to be found in the pages of the collection edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, but the various writers stepped off the Yellow Brick Road and into the dark woods more than a few times as they crafted their Oz-inspired stories.
When I first heard about this upcoming anthology, I wondered how deep they would go into Oz lore. Of course, everyone is familiar with the movie The Wizard of Oz…but fewer people have read the novel that it was based on. And then even fewer know that the original author, L. Frank Baum wrote an additional 13 books following Dorothy’s original adventure and that the publisher kept going after Baum’s death to publish a total of 40(!) total books that are considered canon. That doesn’t include the various other iterations from films to Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked and subsequent musical and so on and so on…
When I was growing up, we had the original 14 Baum books on my bookshelf thanks to my father (to be honest, we may have had a few more beyond those 14, but I can’t remember each of them). I read all of them when I was in junior high and high school and really liked some of the characters and the twisted stories and fates that some of them endured. If you go back and look at some of them, I have to imagine that Tim Burton was heavily inspired by a few in particular for many of his films.
This collection has a few stories that are scraped only from that first novel, but more often than not, there is a deeper knowledge of Oz at play — deep cuts into Oz lore, if you will. Characters like Scraps, the patchwork girl; Dr. Pipt, the creator of the Powder of Life, and General Jinjur, all feature into multiple stories — but for me, some of the best stories simply used Oz as a launching pad, leaning into each author’s specialities. This is a wonderful collection of stories — some with only tenuous connections to Oz, but others with both feet set firmly on the roads of the Emerald City. Throughout it, the authors play with the characters, the settings, and even the words themselves — dropping Easter Eggs like crazy throughout the book. It’s a fun collection, but I have to imagine that having that deeper connection and knowledge to expanded Oz books would certainly enrich your reading experience.
I always like to narrow in on a few of the stories that I really liked or that really connected with me. One is the entire reason I pushed the overall rating on this book up to 5-star territory while the other two offer up some true horror vibes that really work in the context of the original as well as the extended Oz Universe.
Final Report on the Rex Rembrandt Affair by M.R. Carey. I was really enjoying this story a lot as it started. I really don’t want to get into the specifics too much on this one. Carey doesn’t involve any early Oz characters, instead only tangentially including Scraps and Dr. Pipt (both of whom first appear in the 7th book, The Patchwork Girl of Oz). For me, the ending of this story was the best part of the entire anthology. If it were not for this story and its ending, I don’t think I would have rated it as high and I made audible noises of joy and revulsion during the climax of the story. I absolutely loved this story and I imagine most readers will as well.
The Lost Princess of Zo by Delilah S. Dawson. Definitely a story that takes firmly established characters (in this case, the O.G. — Dorothy) and places them in a mirror universe where the colors don’t pop off the screen, there isn’t a merry band of munchkins ready to sing of your arrival, and there is no well-meaning but hapless wizard at the end of the yellow brick road. Instead, Dorothy somehow descends down a tunnel that takes her to Zo — a place that is literally trying to kill her with each new revelation. This one takes some dark turns and is a true opposite to what Baum originally gave us with Dorothy’s story.
The Little House on the Kansas Prairie by Jonathan Maberry. I thought this was a fitting endcap to the collection, bringing all the stories back to the basics. Maberry creates a moody piece that could have served as an alternate ending to the original novel. When Dorothy gets back to Kansas, her house is there…but if she truly went to Oz, then her original home should still be in Munchkinland…shouldn’t it? Over the course of Maberry’s story, Dorothy is gaslit by her aunt and uncle, all while recognizing that she isn’t as innocent as she used to be — how her experiences in Oz toughed her up and made her into a different person than before the tornado. The ending is dark, but hopeful and fitting for the story and the entire anthology.
Land of Oz is a fantastic collection of stories where authors were able to dip into a century-old literary universe. The results don’t all hit the highest of heights, but when they do, they’re as golden as a certain road in an alternate world. It may not be for everyone, but if you love L. Frank Baum’s creations, you have to check out Land of Oz.
Land of Oz, edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, will be published on September 1, 2026.
Thank you to Titan Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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