STRAW SONG and the darker side of Oz

 

My new dark romantic fantasy/urban fantasy Straw Song is finally available! At last, the brainy but insecure Scarecrow and brash but empathetic witch Theo can invade others’ headspace the way they have mine for a year. On this Monday the 13^th , I’m contemplating my enjoyment of the darker side of Oz.

 The original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum was intended as light entertainment for children, according to Baum’s forward to the book, yet it contains some gruesome scenes. Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, relates to Dorothy (who is supposed to be a young child in the story) how his cursed axe lopped off his arms and legs and head, so he had tin replacements made by a skilled smith. Even in an enchanted land like Oz, that had to hurt and be bloody as hell. Later in the book, horrible tiger-bear monsters called kalidahs attack the party and are stopped only by chopping down a log bridge which sends them tumbling into a crevasse to their implied deaths. 

Scarecrow's first murder.

And when our heroes raid the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, she sends wolves, crows, stinging insects, and her guards to kill them. The Tin Woodman chops off the heads of all the wolves. The Scarecrow twists the necks of the crows. Even though these are just straightforward sentences in the book, with no blood or gore mentioned, any kid who understands that living things bleed may be a bit taken aback by such violence. The witch’s servant monkeys rip the Scarecrow apart and dop his head and clothing into a tall tree, and it’s not clear he’s not dead until some time later when Dorothy rescues him and has him restuffed. The Cowardly Lion proves his mettle by beheading a giant spider (he bites its head off!). So just in this first classic children’s book we have death, dismemberment, body horror, and monsters aplenty. 

illustration by Skottie Young, The Wizard of Oz
(Eric Shanower's adaptation from L. Frank Baum, Marvel Comics)

Me? I’m all for it. I love monsters, I enjoy a bit of body horror, as any reader of mine will know. Hell, even in my lighter romantic fantasy Straw Man, protagonist Jack experiences quite a bit of body horror as Cassie’s spell takes unexpected effect on him. I love transformation, as evidenced in horror comedy Wendigogo . In Straw Song I have body horror with Scarecrow, although its impact is diminished some by the fact that in his original state he can’t feel pain even when ripped apart, as well as Ozian monsters and some truly evil characters causing all manner of casual horror. Why? Well, for one, because I enjoy it, and also because Oz DOES have a darker side which some fans love even more than the sweetness and light of the MGM musical.

 Case in point: the 1985 film Return to Oz. It hasn’t become a cult classic despite the creepier elements but because of them. Dorothy is threatened with electroshock therapy to cure her of her delusions about Oz (a truly scary part of the film, moreso if, like me, you ever dreaded being sent to a mental hospital or, gods forbid, did end up in one). When she finally lands in Oz, she encounters the Wheelers, amazingly and frighteningly portrayed by actors on actual wheels in grotesque masks. Every fan I’ve encountered who saw this film as a kid was legit scared of the Wheelers.

Gimme some sugar!

The Nome King, unlike his more comical depiction in the books, is sadistic and genuinely threatening in the film. The witch Mombi (in the film, an amalgamation of the book characters Mombi and Langwidere, who enjoys collecting people’s heads) is also a problem for Dorothy, and her cabinet of still-living bodiless heads definitely creepy at the very least. (Yay! More body horror!) The scene where Dorothy sneaks into the head collection is one of the scarier moments. I’ve seen some Oz fans complain about how “dark” this film us while seemingly ignoring the fact that the books have plenty of low-key horror as well. Langwidere does threaten to cut off Dorothy’s head and add it to her collection, and the Nome King does trick most of the adventuring party into being turned into tchotchkes for his collection, in the book Ozma of Oz. I submit that pondering the implications of your head becoming just another pretty thing in a witch’s collection, to be put on and off like a hair bow as her whim dictates, or spending your existence transformed into a motionless, helpless objet d’art to be occasionally dusted, is guaranteed to strike horror into the heart of anyone.

 So, given all this existing (and fully canon!) horror in Oz, I have zero problems writing it. Though Straw Song is definitely a weird love story at its heart, the characters have plenty of awful things to deal with. Though Scarecrow and his friend Nick Chopper can’t be killed by normal means, creative evil witches can certainly come up with ways to torture them to elicit their compliance. Having a friend who can survive being beheaded doesn’t make seeing it any easier for a mortal. And monsters well known in Oz are guaranteed to be scarier once they invade our world.

 Of course, even stronger than monsters or malicious magic is the horror of seeing a character you’ve come to love in serious danger, and I hope I’ve accomplished that in this book. You don’t need to be an Oz fan to enjoy it, either. If you like urban fantasy with romance, or romantic fantasy with a dark ambiance, dive in! Scarecrow promises you won’t regret it.

Straw Song by K.A. Silva available for purchase in ebook or print from amazon.

Signed copies available exclusively through Graythorn Publishing! 

All Scarecrows, All the Time

I’ve been reading a lot of Oz books (both the original L. Frank Baum works, and newer stuff by other authors) and Scarecrow stories the past few months, both as research for my ongoing dark Ozian romantic fantasy-in-progress (tentative title Straw Song), and just for fun. This particular chase through the cornfield has unearthed two absolute gems of short story anthologies, Shadows of the Emerald City (ed. by JW Schnarr), and Scarecrow (ed. by Rhonda Parrish). So what’s so awesome about them, you ask? Well, my friend, beyond the fact WHY ARE YOU EVEN ASKING, SCARECROW IS THE BEST, both contain a number of well-written tales worth a read. Even those weird Tin Man fans will find a few stories they’ll like. (I mean I’m not judging, but brains and crinkly hugs over a heart and a hard metal body any day.)

Let’s start with Shadows. The publisher is Northern Frights, 2009. If you’re not familiar with this indie house, they publish a number of excellent ghost tales and Northwoods/Great Lakes legend collections. Quite a few of their books helped me in research for Wendigogo. I did notice a few grammatical errors in this anthology which really should have been fixed before publication. For instance, “Scarecrow’s Sunrise” contains several incorrect uses of “it’s” instead of “its,” which shouldn't have slipped by the editor. Also, some formatting issues with the kindle edition that don’t exist in the paperback (I liked the anthology enough to buy the physical book after reading the ebook). That said, it's a wonderful collection.

Tin Man and Scarecrow had no idea what they were in for.

Hilariously dark stories nuzzle affectionately next to truly bleak ones. Only a couple of them have anything like a happy ending, but fans of dark humor will find a few laughs here. The delightfully cannibalistic “Mr. Yoop’s Soup” (Michael Turner) plays with a little-known Oz monster and the canon idea that Ozians feel no pain due to an enchantment upon the entire land. By the inevitable, E.C. Comics-style ending of “Four A.M. at the Emerald City Windsor” (H.F. Gibbard), you can almost hear the Cryptkeeper’s cackle as the sleazy Wizard reaches his much-deserved fate. 

Eee hee heee!

My favorite story here, “Scarecrow’s Sunrise” (Gef Fox), gives our beloved straw man a hint of a darker side and also shows Glinda isn’t as Good as she’d like everyone to think. “Dr. Will Price and the Curious Case of Dorothy Gale” (Mark Onspaugh) also has an EC Comics feel to the ending, though with a surreal, dreamlike mood throughout. Fans of the Wicked Witch will enjoy “One Wicked Day” (Frank Dutkiewicz) and “The Perfect Fit” (E.M. MacCallum), both of which have a little bleak humor sprinkled into the murky stew. 

Much darker are stories that play with the canon idea that no one in Oz can ever die, such as the sad and frightening “The Fuddles of Oz” (Mari Ness), or how horrifically a metal man with no heart would behave, as in “Tin” (Barry Napier). The genial Jack Pumpkinhead takes on a much more sinister aspect in “Pumpkinhead” (Rajan Khanna). Poor Scarecrow confronts his deeply flawed son in “The King of Oz” (Martin Rose). “Not in Kansas Anymore” (Lori T. Strongin) starts out feeling like one type of gritty alt-Oz story and morphs into something more fantastical by its end. It also features an heroic performance by Scarecrow as a voice of conscience and hope, which I loved.

The standout tale in this collection, “Dorothy of Kansas” (JW Schnarr), has haunted me for weeks. It is very much Cormac McCarthy’s The Road meets The Wizard of Oz. Flashes of humor give way to a relentlessly bleak narrative all from the Tin Man’s POV. I couldn’t stop reading it, despite the downward spiral into utter despair. Tin Man and Scarecrow trek through a burned-out, apocalyptic Oz seeking a savior. This is the story that will make you go hug your significant other or seek out a friend to talk to at dark-thirty. Powerful and very well done but just bleak af. You’ve been warned. 

Not that Road.

The Scarecrow anthology (World Weaver Press, 2015) contains fewer references to Oz than you’d think. Jane Yolen has a lovely poem, “Scarecrow Hangs,” which starts off the collection, and the ending story “If I Only Had an Autogenic Cognitive Decision Matrix” (Scott Burtness) makes sly reference to “The Wizard of Oz” film, with an unexpectedly hilarious and dark scifi turn. The tales in between deal with different kinds of scarecrows, with humor, horror, and love intermingled nicely. 

Just the crinkliest, crunkliest stories ever.

The standouts for me: “Kakashi & Crow” (Megan Fennell) is a beautiful blending of Native American myth about the trickster Crow having to team up with his adversary Kakashi, the Japanese Scarecrow spirit, to defeat a grim enemy in modern times. Even old gods can be killed. This reads like a supernatural buddy comedy with some bloody, serious sharp turns. “A Fist Full of Straw” (Kristina Wojtaszek), about a scarecrow enslaved to a wicked witch, and the desperate woman he meets on her regular grocery store runs, is beautiful and full of longing. Made me hug my little Scarecrow companion tight. “Black Birds” (Laura Blackwood) barely has a scarecrow in it and is more about the inner voices of depression and self-loathing, but it’s masterfully done and hits hard. 

“Edith and I” (Virginia Carraway Stark), told from a scarecrow’s viewpoint through the seasons, is a wonderful bit of fantasy, and like several other tales in this collection plays with the concept of tulpas: when we imbue a created thing with personality, does it not then have a life and awareness of its own? (Absolutely yes, many created things have spirits, but I know other folks disagree.) “Waking from His Master’s Dream” (Katherine Marzinsky) is an odd bit of magical-realism where created ficciones take physical form, much to the dismay of those who prefer reality separate from imagination. 

The other stories here range from scifi versions of scarecrows, such as the cybernetic creature in “The Truth About Crows” (Craig Pay), to more fantasy-themed stories that only tangentially have straw men in them, as in “Only the Land Remembers” (Amanda Block) and “The Roofnight” (Amanda C. Davis). “Judge & Jury” (Laura VanArendonk Baugh) is a tidy little revenge tale of crows who love a ghost. And “The Straw Samurai” (Andrew Bud Adams) feels like something right out of a Japanese or Hong Kong movie studio, with anthropomorphic animal clans warring evil spirits. 

The only bones I have to pick with this collection are that the kindle edition has some formatting glitches, and the paperback cover in matte would have fared better as a glossy finish. (The matte finish, as I discovered with one of my own books, just feels sort of fabricky and wrong, and doesn’t display cover art to its best advantage.) I haven’t checked out any of editor Rhonda Parrish’s other collections, though Corvidae definitely sounds like a good addition to my nest. 

If you know of other scarecrow (or Scarecrow) tales I should read, drop a rec in the comments or let me know over on the twitterverse (@gravewriter71)! Fantastical, horrific, erotic—I’ll read ‘em. (As a side note, yes there is scarecrow--and Scarecrow--erotica out there, and all but a couple of 'em are terrible and unimaginative. I will change that.)

Meanwhile I continue to scribble away on my own Scarecrow novel, romantic dark fantasy Straw Song, out for publication later this year. The Scarecrow of Oz comes to our world seeking a grown Dorothy, but nothing goes as he’d hoped. Young witch Theo from my prior romantic fantasy Straw Man takes him in and on a wild road trip to Kansas. Given Scarecrow’s major Issues with witches, a secret and deadly plot afoot back in Oz, and nightmarish creatures showing up in our world with bloody consequences, things are gonna get darker before they get lighter. Witches and zombies and Wheelers, oh my! Stay tuned.

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No, Your Love Is Not Superior

Recently I had a mild argument with another author who portrayed a relationship in their books as deeply affectionate, soulmates even, but without any physical intimacy past kissing and hugging. Nothing wrong with that. Appropriate for his intended audience of younger readers, even. What seriously pissed me off was the insistence that a soul-to-soul love without sex was somehow superior to and more pure than love that includes physical consummation.

Now that, my friends, is some fucking Puritan bullshit. Screw Plato and Socrates and the notion that agape is somehow superior to loving someone using every possible connection two people can experience. High time we kick dead Greeks and their prudish descendants out of the heads of modern humanity.

I know of writers who don’t include sex scenes between their protagonists even if the characters are romantically involved. I’ve heard of readers, romance readers even, who prefer books without sex scenes. Who view romance as somehow more palatable without the wonderfully ridiculous delights of skin rubbing skin and grunting and moaning as awkward bodies come together to express complete desire for and acceptance of another person. I don’t understand this perspective at all, but I’m very aware that’s my outlook. Not everyone wants or needs sex with their love. Aces for instance see no need for it, and that’s cool, that’s their thing. It’s a valid viewpoint and it doesn’t have to make sense to me to be legitimate.

However, holding up love which doesn’t include sex as better than romantic attraction which includes all possible aspects of personal connection? Making that an all-inclusive statement, one-size-should-fit-all, and looking down one’s nose at those of us who delight in carnal relations as an integral part of true love? That’s some arrogant bullshit right there. That’s some zombie Puritan repression that refuses to die, encouraging bigotry, sex-shaming. Its festering corpse still haunts certain religious sects. This is especially harmful to kids growing up being taught that sex is dirty, or that striving to repress desire, even when mutual, is the only correct outlook on love. Same school of thought extends to anti-LGBTQ+ relationships. Teaching younguns that love without sex is superior only fosters and festers guilt, shame, and insecurity. Kill that viewpoint dead, burn it, and salt the damned earth it stood on for far too long.

Lookin' at YOU, Southern Baptists.

Someone who insists that sex somehow cheapens a loving relationship only tells me that person has never given their partner an orgasm. 

So yes, in my romance Straw Man there is very explicit, very tender and uplifting sex between my protagonists. Also some very silly innuendo as part of that sex, because squishing body parts together is an inherently silly act and I pity those who take it too seriously. This should be fun, you guys, not some holy of holies. Yes, even if the people involved are soulmates, deeply connected, yadda yadda. I’d argue especially if so.

In my horror comedy Wendigogo, Morty is baffled by his girlfriend’s attraction to him, as he thinks he’s nothing special. That doesn’t stop them from enjoying some bedsport, even once Morty begins to feel the effects of the wendigo curse. Book two of The Reluctant Wendigo will explore this in more detail, both because a good chunk of wendigo myth revolves around woman’s power to calm a wendigo (in the old stories, so they can then kill him), and because I want to dig into Morty and Darcy’s relationship further. So yeah, gonna be some weird sex coming up, and it definitely won’t be to everyone’s taste, and that’s fine. 

I mean c'mon. Look how cute he is in antlers.

My work in progress, Scarecrow (working title only, might go with Song of Straw), is a romantic modern fantasy with horror elements. (As if I could write something not horrific at all. Ever.) It is also very much an Oz story inspired by Baum’s books. Young witch Theo, Cassie’s friend from Straw Man, gets involved in the Scarecrow of Oz on his mission to find his true love. And gradually gets involved with him. Not shying away from the physical aspects of that as the relationship blooms. 

The pic that started it all.

So no, definitely not an Oz story for kids, but writing it as true to real relationships as I’m able. 

Sex is often a natural progression in a loving relationship where there’s also attraction and desire. Not for everyone. Maybe not for you, and that’s okay. My characters are as lusty, earthy, carnal and delighted by the physical aspects of love as I am. Some might not want to read that or write that, and that’s perfectly fine—but putting nonsexual love on a pedestal and worshipping it as the best, the purest, the highest and only way? 

Fuck that. And kill that decaying Puritan smugness already. Love is never one size fits all. 

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