Book Review: The Undead World Of Oz

In keeping with the recent trends of adding monsters to classic literature like Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Ryan C. Thomas decided to add some of the walking dead to the original Wizard Of Oz novel in The Undead World Of Oz. This is published by Coscom Entertainment, which specializes in other zombiefied literature like Alice In Zombieland.

The book is essentially a retelling of Dorothy going to Oz, although once there, she finds out that the Wicked Witch of the West casted a spell that makes the dead Munchkins rise from their graves and eating the brains of the living. Dorothy gets a magic gun from a Munchkin with unlimited ammo that shoots out bullets which always hit their intended targets. Toto gets temporarily infected with the zombie virus too, but is conveniently cured by a transfusion by the only Munchkin who is apparently immune to zombie bites, but gets devoured by hungry zombies. The story goes with Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion joining her, although Dorothy accidently kills the Tin Man's zombified ex-girlfriend. They then get sent to the Wicked Witch, who ends up as a zombie buffet. However, her death doesn't stop the curse, so our heroes trek to Glinda for help. Her plan is to create a giant floating brain to lure all the zombies out. This leads into a large Army Of Darkness-type battle, where Dorothy emerges as "Buffy the Zombie Slayer". Also because of all her fighting the undead, her silver shoes turn ruby.

This rewritten adaptation is fair, although alot of it is just a direct copy of the original book. There's not much of a horror element to it, more just zombie gore and violence. Not even very fun in a Sean Of The Dead kind of way. Mainly check it out only if you're a total zombie junkie.