Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Silver Princess in Oz [Book Review]

[Contains minor spoilers for a book nobody reads anymore.]

"The Silver Princess in Oz" is the thirty-second book in the Oz series, originally created by L. Frank Baum. It was written by Ruth Plumly Thompson and published in 1938. The word "half-assed" comes to mind. A lot of things about this book just seem underdone. There are also some main plot points, such as the antagonist and his plot, that I am just uninterested in talking about due to its modern social significance.  Either way, there's not a whole lot there to discuss even if I bothered.

This book is the sequel to another mediocre book called "The Purple Prince of Oz" which was book #26. Both books star King Randy, a rather boring child king who has difficulties with responsibility. The same is here as the whole story is just him running away from his duties for no other reason but to find random adventure. Also like in "The Purple Prince of Oz," he is joined by Kubumpo the Elegant Elephant who is actually a very charming character.

So the most interesting character in this story is the Silver Princess herself. Ruth did a first for the series here. She is an honest-to-God alien from another planet. I'm not joking. This book actually goes there, and it was very interesting. The only problem was that Ruth totally botched the names of everything.

Take a deep breath. Here it comes. Her name is Planetty, and she comes from "Anuther Planet." That wasn't a typo. Her home is called "Anuther Planet." It honestly feels like Thompson came up with filler names for the Silver Princess and ultimately just used them.

Planetty's world is heavily metal-based. She even had metal in the make-up of her body. Everything is gray and boring there, and apparently she has to occasionally shower in special fountains there or she will turn completely into metal and be a statue for the rest of her life. Having been accidently transported to Earth, she did not have those fountains available, and so her life was in imminent danger.

Her language was slightly different than English. This was another half-assed aspect of the story. Various words were just slightly tweaked to be different. "Nice" was pronounced "nite," and "beautiful" was pronounced "netiful." It was silly.

Even with these flaws, she did actually feel like someone from an entirely different world. This was done quite well, and she proved to be the most interesting person in the entire book.

She also had a black horse that was made of fire and brimstone named Thunder Colt or Thun for short. It was a very eerie creature because, despite its danger and violence, it made absolutely no sound and could not actually hear anything itself. It spoke by puffing out clouds witch formed into letters, but often didn't spell things right. He was one hell of a beast and actually came across as rather terrifying.

Despite the title, the book almost entirely takes place in the country of Ev. The princess is in one tiny scene within Oz at the end, so the title makes sense, I guess. That's really all I wanna talk about.

I'm sorry, but I don't recommend the book. It was like ten steps back from Thompson's recent quality. Even with the parts I've omitted, there's very little entertainment value outside of the princess herself. Skip it.

This blog was written on January 11, 2022.

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