Shadows of the Emerald City is an anthology based around L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz series. The original fourteen novels painted a wild landscape full of character and color that couldn’t be properly fleshed out, despite a fifteen book series.
Originally intended for Baum’s younger audiences, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz was near utopian in the struggle of good versus evil. Shadows of the Emerald City is quite the opposite. Bringing together the horrific elements of Baum’s world, two evil witches, a mechanical tin death squad, a cannibalistic ogre, magicians of high caliber, and an army of lifeless scarecrows, Shadows is a high adrenaline romp through the expansive lands of Oz.
Shadows is not a literary allegory. Those looking for another excuse to compare Baum’s work to the gold standard should look elsewhere.
Shadows is a very disturbing look into the mystical world that Baum left behind. Imagine a tin woodsman and a glass cat fighting an ogre. Imagine an army of soulless scarecrows marching through town to fight the wicked witch. Half the tales are a battle royale with your favorites, the other half are a dark analysis of the more dubious fellows. This anthology delivers.
While there aren’t zombies or werewolves, this book is full of things that go bump in the night. It’s a breath of fresh air into the horror genre that goes back a hundred years to find the most underutilized creatures in the genre. This is definitely a book to round out any horror library