The Silver Princess in Oz

Oz Continued #32

by Ruth Plumly Thompson

Book 32 in The Wizard of Oz

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Childrens, Classics, Young Adult, Juvenile, Adventure

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

An avid reader of Baum's books and a lifelong children's writer, Thompson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began her writing career in 1914 when she took a job with the Philadelphia Public Ledger; she wrote a weekly children's column for the newspaper. She had already published her first children's book, The Perhappsy Chaps, and her second, The Princess of Cozytown, was pending publication when William Lee, vice president of Baum's publisher Reilly & Lee, solicited Thompson to continue the Oz series. (Rumors among fans that Thompson was Baum's niece were untrue.) Between 1921 and 1939, she wrote one Oz book a year. (Thompson was the primary supporter of her widowed mother and invalid sister, so that the annual income from the Oz books was important for her financial circumstances.)

Thompson's contributions to the Oz series are lively and imaginative, featuring a wide range of colorful and unusual characters. However, one particular theme repeats over and over throughout her novels, with little variation. Typically in each of Thompson's Oz novels, a child (usually from America) and a supernatural companion (usually a talking animal), while traveling through Oz or one of the neighboring regions, find themselves in an obscure community where the inhabitants engage in a single activity. The inhabitants of this community then capture the travelers, and force them to participate in this same activity.

Another major theme has elderly characters, most controversially, the Good Witch of the North, being restored to "marriageable" age, possibly because Thompson herself never married. She had a greater tendency toward the use of romantic love stories (which Baum usually avoided in his fairy tales, with about 4 exceptions). While Baum's child protagonists tended to be little girls, Thompson's were boys. She emphasized humor to a greater extent than Baum did, and always considered her work for children, whereas Baum, while first and foremost considering his child audience, knew that his readership comprised all ages.

Thompson's last Oz story, The Enchanted Island of Oz(1976), was not originally written as an Oz book.

Reviews

[hpboy13 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nowhere close to the charm, magic, and inventiveness of the originals. These books should not be considered Oz canon.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

What would have been one of Thompson's better Oz books is severely let down by the racist caricatures in the last part of the book.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the eightieth anniversary of the publication of this book, which I used as an excuse to give it a reread. This isn't really one of my favorites, despite having some of my favorite characters, I think largely because it aged poorly. I won't start by addressing the elephant in the room, which isn't the same as the elephant in the book. It's the last volume in what's sort of an unofficial Kabumpo trilogy with Kabumpo in Oz and The Purple Prince of Oz. Here, he accompanies King Randy of Regalia on a trip that has him get married. The Elegant Elephant is never really the main protagonist in the books where he features, but he's larger than life in more ways than one. Randy's love interest in this book is Planetty, the titular Silver Princess, who's from a world called Anuther Planet and accompanied by her Thunder Colt Thun. It's sort of a science fiction element, although there's very little science involved. The alien world of Anuther Planet is a gray place of metallic people and animals with beautiful forms, who are generated from vanadium springs. Vanadium, a metal with the atomic number twenty-three, was named after an alternate cognomen of the Norse goddess Freyja, and like her, Planetty is attractive but also tough, being very strong and carrying a staff that she can use to petrify enemies. She's even referred to as a "war maiden" at one point. Randy falls for her immediately, and she returns his affections as she learns about the new world on which she's found herself. I'm sure Randy being the first person she meets there is helpful in this, but hey, it's an Oz book, so there are going to be coincidences. What I think doesn't work as well here is the plot. Thompson's last few Oz books (not counting the two that were later published by the International Wizard of Oz Club) tended to have strong characters, and she'd generally improved in her writing style, but the plots were a little lazy. In all of the last four, the conflict isn't introduced until a considerable part of the story has already passed, and it's always an invasion. This time, the invasion involves a slave revolt, which is where the problematic aspect comes in. The Red Jinn is portrayed as a good guy here, but he also seems to have no problem with enslaving people of a different race. Even that is somewhat complicated by the fact that, once Jinnicky takes back the throne, we're told that "their hours were short, their wages high and each miner had his own cozy cottage and garden." Does this mean they were paid despite being identified as slaves, or that Jinnicky ended their slavery? If the latter, it's a rather offhand way of addressing a major shift in economic and human rights issues in his country, although perhaps such is typical of late-thirties Thompson. At the time I first read the book, I don't think I was really aware of the myth, popular at the time Thompson wrote, that black people were happy as slaves (or, later, poor sharecroppers), and only thought they weren't when stirred up by agitators. Unfortunately, the story fits this sort of narrative, with the slaves coming across as gullible, supporting a new regime when they were better off under the old one. The mastermind of the rebellion, Gludwig, is also black but presumably not a slave, as he's the manager of the ruby mines and has his own mansion and money. So it's complicated, but still pretty offensive no matter how you look at it.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had some serious disappointment with this book. The first starts off with Kabumpo being one of the main characters. I have never cared for Oz's Elegant Elephant, finding him to always be arrogant and annoying. This left me less than excited from the get go, but there were other aspects of this book that also left me wanting. L. Frank Baum and to an extent Ruth Plumly Thompson both introduce unique and often humorous races of peoples in the Oz books. Those that Thompson brings forth in Silver Princess felt flat, creepy, and uninspired. The residents of Gapers Gulch bury themselves in the ground for a six month nap...nothing creepy about that. The disembodied creatures of Headland we also odd wanting to decapitate our heroes, so that their bodies wouldn't keep their heads from being free. The most interesting were the boxed people of the Boxed Wood, but they still did not have the fun that has existed in so many other of the Oz books.
If you do read this book, being one of the Famous/Fabulous 40 of Oz, keep in mind that Thompson was writing during a time in America where sensitivity to different races and cultures was not the norm. This is very obvious when the party reaches Jinnicky's palace in Ev.
What I did like were Planetty and Thun, they were fun and charming. However, the concept of having aliens from another world seemed a bit odd in an Oz book. This reprinted edition had an afterward that talked about Thompson writing this one for fun, since I guess she was constantly battling with the publisher at this point for royalties, book promotion, and other aspects of their partnership. It was implied that one of the reasons none of Baum's characters appeared in this story was that Thompson wanted to be ready to sell this story to another publisher and didn't want to have to compensate for the loss of the inconic residents of the Emerald City. Whether her own maturing of age, having written so many prior Oz adventures, or issues with the publisher I felt that this book lacked so much of what makes an Oz book light-hearted fun in a world where anything is possible. Not one of my favorites. With lucky the next book Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz (Thompson's last contribution to the 40) brings back some of the fun and magic.

[Derek L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the seventeenth book in Thompson's Continuing Oz series, it becomes even more evident that she was writing during a very interesting, problematic time in United States history. The Silver Princess in Oz was a remarkable book to read and I did enjoy it, but I couldn't help but notice several harmful depictions that were in this.

I know a lot of people are wary when it comes to the phrases, "product of its time" and "consider historical context," but to deny that this series was not influenced by Thompson's society and culture would be very negligible. You don't necessarily have to see how the real world influences a fantastical world, but there is some impact on the literature whether we like it or not.

I do think this was an enjoyable read but I was rather uncomfortable with parts of the story that involved race, as I believe I should be. That wasn't the main reason why I gave this book a 4/5, but there was one silly moment of "oh how convenient" that was a bit bothersome to me, and affected the rating.

I will, of course, continue the series up to the last book in the long, 45 book series 🙂

[Bob Newman · Rating 2 out of 5]

King Randy Gets Hitched to Princess from Anuther Planet after Adventures with Elephant and Red Djinn

L. Frank Baum had an immortal hit with “The Wizard of Oz” because his characters stood for something; Wisdom, Kindness and Courage saved the good little girl who learned about life and demolished a couple of witches (evil) along the way faking out a few flying monkeys as well. We learned that the Great might just be humbugs. After he wrote thirteen more Oz books, creating a cast of characters that I’ve loved since I was a little kid (I’m a wee bit past that now), he went up to that Emerald City in the sky and wrote no more. But. His characters were taken up by a lady who, in my humble opinion, was not quite up to the mark, though she still managed to include a lot of puns. She wrote a large number of more Oz books. At first she was cooking with gas, but as time went on, she probably just ran out of ideas and began creating random countries and characters. Maybe she was an ozaholic. This is #30, published in 1938. There were a lot more after that.

“The Silver Princess in Oz” contains nothing about any of the beloved characters, does not lead to the Emerald City, and after 80 pages, leaves Oz behind, crosses the Deadly Desert that we know surrounds that magical land, and only returns in the last few pages. In fact, this is an Oz book only because Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant is in it and the young king of Regalia (the Bhutan of Oz apparently) is a denizen of a far corner of the Gilliken land. It’s pretty formulaic for all that. The perspicacious pachyderm and young king (whose name is unfortunately “Randy”) escape several weird races of creatures—flying heads, gapers who sleep six months at a time, a race of boxed beings—and manage to rescue a magically-exiled king and punish the evil imposter who has taken over. There are any number of similar plots in the Oz books, but they are better written usually. Early on they join up with a metallic princess who rides a fire-breathing horse. Randy becomes enamored of the girl right off, but hesitates to get singed by her steed. Could be nasty. I was quite annoyed to find some racist caricatures drawn on the pages. L. Frank never sunk that low. So, all in all, though I still love Oz books, I’m not recommending this one very highly.

P.S. The princess’ planet is named Anuther. Ho Ho.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is book number 32 in the Oz series, and by this point there’s very much a blueprint for success that Thompson is following. Although there are also a few unique bits and bobs that are worth a mention, too.

You can expect to see a bunch of old friends here, most notably Randy and Kabumbo, who end up meeting the titular silver princess and her fire-breathing horse. The main quest here is the attempt to get them back home, because if they’re away for more than a week then they’ll stop moving.

It’s a pretty good story, and I liked Princess Planetty and the fact that there’s an extra-terrestrial vibe was also a nice touch. Then we have the fact that my particular edition was quite an interesting one, a spin on the whole public domain thing from Empty Grave Publishing.

From what I understand, the guy who runs the press was upset that some of the Oz books that he remembered from his youth were no longer in print, so he decided to print them himself. While doing so, he also made some edits to the content to “change some distracting and very non-Oz words and phrases”. Basically, he took out references to characters being black.

Oh, he also added a short story of his own, which was terrible. But I won’t let that affect the rating that I gave the story itself, because that was all I was interested in anyway. Yeah…

[Janelle]

Dnf. First Oz book I’ve failed to finish. But I just couldn’t make myself go on. Very little to like in this.