This Week's Oz Short Story

I forgot that the 1999 issue of Oziana had a nearly-issue-length story. Fortunately, this is my spring break, so it was easier than usual to carve time out of my schedule to read "Toto's Tale" by Ian Fink. I suspect Mr. Fink had not read all the Oz books at the time he wrote this, because it seems Dorothy is living in Oz, but not in the palace. Also, large part of the story deals with Toto not being able to talk. (This would actually work out really well if the Oz series had ended with The Emerald City of Oz, as L. Frank Baum had originally intended.) Toto runs off to a barbecue joint, where he is befriended by the proprietors, the Johnsons (which doesn't sound much like an Ozzy name to me). While there, Toto susses out a couple of witches who intend to steal one of Ozma's magic rubies for their own purposes. When Dorothy finds him, they are drawn into Doggy Haven, where Toto is given an emerald collar. Upon their return, Toto can now talk! (Yes, this predates Tik-Tok of Oz.) After the ruby disappears, Toto tells Dorothy and Ozma about the witches, and offers to help sniff them out. When the search party returns at night to the barbecue joint, they are stopped by the witches, who are using the ruby to drain energy and magic from anything and anyone around them—including the Magic Belt! Only Toto is unaffected, so he manages to knock a log pile over and stop the witches before they complete their task. In the process, however, Toto is injured, and nearly dies. The guardians from Doggy Haven come and save him, but take back his emerald collar in the process. Toto can't talk any more, but he's still recognized as a hero.

I normally don't mind versions of Oz that don't hew so closely to the books. Some alternate versions of Oz are a lot of fun, if you recognize them as such. But this one was so close to the Oz of the books, and yet so not quite there. As I hinted earlier, I suspect Fink was only aware of the first few Baum books, no further along than The Emerald City of Oz. Had he just read a couple more books, The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Tik-Tok of Oz would have filled in a few more details that he was trying to shoehorn into this story. It just didn't gel with me. There also wasn't quite enough story to fill all the pages it took up, so large chunks felt like padding. It's not a horrible story, but it could have used an Oz-sovvy editor to tighten it up and keep in closer to the Oz I think he was trying to show us. There were some nice passeges, however, such as Dorothy and Toto's conversation about what being a dog is like versus being a human.