My lovely wife brought me back an interesting book from the local Barnes & Nobels. “Wicked”, by Gregory Maguire, tells the story of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West. I have consumed about 1/3 of the book. I have had to set the book down so that I can read the Frank Baum original story. My library has this massive illustrated, annotated version of “The Wizard of Oz” that I am going to read first.
The book is pretty good so far- obviously it was interesting enough that I wanted to go back and familiarize myself with the original Oz material. This book is one in a psuedo-series. Other offerings include “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” (of Cinderella fame) and another title that somehow ties into the Snow White story called “Mirror, Mirror”. I can’t comment on the other titles yet, but if they meet the quality of “Wicked”, they will be recommended reads.
Keep us posted. I’ve heard of this book and I might steal this from you if I stop by your place on the way to CO. It actually seems like a pretty good way to write a book if you have writer’s block. Plot often gets in the way whenever I’ve thought about writing something but this way would provide a canvas with a starting point and still leave enough room for creativity to go in any direction you wanted.