The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

There are so many references to this work, some of which I didn’t even catch until reading up on fan sites. Where to begin?

A man named Henry Gale crashes on the island in a hot air balloon. (Ben Linus steals his identity.) Later, Sawyer calls Tom Friendly, one of the Others, “Zeke.” Zeke is one of the farmhands that works for Henry Gale, just as Tom works for Ben.

There is an episode titled “The Man Behind the Curtain” in which Locke calls Ben this and then directly mentions the Wizard of Oz. (As it turns out, the actual powerful being behind the curtain is Jacob, though he, unlike the Wizard, has real powers.) There is also a three-part episode called “There’s No Place Like Home” with flash forwards for Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, Kate, & Aaron.

Then there are also some references to the film, like a character getting crushed and having red shoes sticking out. (In the book, they were silver shoes, not ruby slippers.) But such references don’t really count, so I think I’ll let it go here.

Speaking of shoes, Dorothy uses her shoes and a wish to return home to get back to Kansas. To get back to the Island, Jack thinks he needs his father’s shoes.

On a larger, thematic note, both stories are about people being caught in a storm and thrown into a magical land.

Thoughts:

If I’m honest, I didn’t really care for this book. It wasn’t bad, but with all the hype around both the book and the movie, I was expecting a little bit more. It was written very simplistically, which one would expect from a children’s book, but there was far more “telling” than “showing” in the action. I never really felt engaged or like I was part of the story, just observing from the outside. Dorothy’s emotions especially were told very passively, and even when she did say or do things that would support the purported emotions, it just wasn’t enough to make up for the rest.

Lost: Secret Identity – Cathy Hapka

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Like the first novella in the series, it’s set in the Lost-universe just after the crash.

Thoughts:

This one is pretty on par with Endangered Species, and again, the author tackles a common Lost theme: secret identities, obviously. Out of curiosity, I did some research on the author and found that she’s written a bunch of books – some of them tie-ins for companies like Disney and Lego, essentially professional fan-fiction. That really is what you get when reading Secret Identity and Endangered Species: good fan-fiction, no more and no less. You can tell the author is in love with all the existing characters, but it does mean that in both books, original characters apart from the main one don’t get much development. But no one reads these things for the literary value, right? Just enjoy them for what they are.

Lost: Endangered Species – Cathy Hapka

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

This semi-canonical novella is set on the Island immediately following the Oceanic crash (except for the flashbacks, of course).

Thoughts:

The writing seemed amateurish, especially in the unnatural dialogue. However, it did move along at a good pace, and it handled some of the themes that readers would expect in Lost, if in a heavy-handed way. (The main character’s name is Faith, she struggles with self-confidence, she has a secretly violent past, etc. It is also formatted so that the 23 chapters alternate between Faith’s present and her flashbacks.) The big upshot for this book was that it did, in fact, focus on someone other than a member of the show’s main cast. It makes sense, considering how many people were on that flight, and I’m glad those responsible for these tie-in books decided to take that route. So, don’t expect anything deep, but your average Lost fan would probably get some enjoyment out of the experience.