Doc Phoenix: The Oz Encounter, by Marv Wolfman & Ted White (pulp adventure novel, 1977)

[lb_lee]

(full title: Weird Heroes Vol. 5: Doc Phoenix: the Oz Encounter. The much-later 2005 hardback reprint just called it the Oz Encounter, which was sensible.)

"We all have dreams and nightmares, Mr. Wentworth, and as we dream our thoughts are as starkly real to us as anything we face while awake. Your daughter is lost in what resembles an extremely deep dream, and for reasons we don't understand yet she refuses to leave her fantasy behind. Perhaps the dream is a pleasant one, something too tempting to vacate, or perhaps it's a nightmare, one which is keeping your daughter its prisoner. We don't know, but we can find out, through my special methods."

Blurb: Doc Phoenix, a superpsychologist dream-diver, enters the mind of a comatose girl and finds a strange land based on famous Oz stories. What is keeping her in her coma? And who is trying to sabotage him and his team?

Why is it worth your time?: This is a self-declared pulp novel, and it embraces that genre. Deep art it is not, but it is entertaining and well-planned out! Doc Phoenix has to adapt to the dreamworlds of the people he enters without losing himself, and the figures within the dreamworlds are shown to be surprisingly independent. (Doc Phoenix remarks on how the Tin Man in particular seems surprisingly adult, considering he resides in the mind of a ten-year-old girl, and the Tin Man even tells Doc at one point that he needs to tell the girl something that they both know but she does not, because "I think she has a right to know." Doc respects that request and does so.) The conclusions were satisfying, and the idea of a hero who works to rescue people's minds from the inside out is a pretty great premise! If you just want a fun, humble adventure, this is worth a shot.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, bodyhopping, identityblending, otherworld, dreamfolk, fictioneers (specifically Ozians, including the Shaggy Man and the Tin Man), realitymashing, friendship, enmity, teamwork

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Only available as a used book; it got reprinted in 2005 to my surprise (in hardcover, even!), but it has never been digitized, as far as I know. Perhaps I should do so!

Misc Notes: Don't be fooled by the title; this book stands perfectly well on its own, and it was the only Doc Phoenix book. (They were clearly hoping for a series, very obviously leaving one loose thread to deal with later, but it never happened.) "Weird Heroes" was a brand imprint, and Doc Phoenix first appeared in a short story, "Doc Phoenix," in Weird Heroes vol. 2 (an anthology). I haven't read that appearance (yet) but had no trouble reading Oz Encounter on its own.

Comments

Content Warnings (MAJOR spoilers!)

[lb_lee]

Murder of headspace denizens as the girl's nightmare consumes itself. Murder of a real-life person, which she witnesses and her father covers up. Possible rape? (It can be ambiguous, depending on how you read characters' statements, but regardless, it is NOT of the girl!) At one point, one of Doc's team wonders whether the father has a "split personality," but this proves not to be the case; he's just extremely conflicted and unwell. At one point, as Doc starts losing himself in a dreamworld, the female member of his team (who he has feelings for) comes onto him, but it's SUPPOSED to be alarming and a sign that he's in the wrong reality, and he always behaves professionally towards her.

Pulp adventure violence.

All the heroes in this book act impressively decently, which was very refreshing on the heels of a different pluralstories contender, which made us so mad that we couldn't justify putting it on here.

Re: Content Warnings (MAJOR spoilers!)

[lb_lee]

Upon coming back to this having now read the first Doc Phoenix story, this one is more violent and with a little more edge. (The short story eschews violence entirely.)