Visitors from Oz
Ever since The Wizard of Oz was first published in 1900, Dorothy and her companions have captured the imaginations of Americans. By placing the story in Manhattan of the late 1990s, with cameo appearances by Rudy Giuliani, Oprah Winfrey, and Geraldo Rivera, Gardner has for the first time ingeniously adapted Baum's immortal characters to an American setting. The purpose of their visit to Earth is to publicize a new musical film about Oz. But plans go awry when two evil mobsters, hired by a wicked rival movie producer, try to kill Dorothy and her companions. Combining vivid suspense with a host of mathematical riddles and technological pyrotechnics, Martin Gardner has created a new fable in the finest traditions of L. Frank Baum that celebrates the power of imagination and the lure of an ageless heroine named Dorothy at the turn of a new century.