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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tyler Do'Urden" data-source="post: 8073666" data-attributes="member: 4601">Interesting how Baum is rarely read any more, despite his influence on American pop culture via The Wizard of Oz. My spouse - not an American - was recently asking me about that movie, and I told her it was one we all watched as a child and in many ways it is the American equivalent to "Journey to the West" - Americans will recognize Dorothy, The Cowardly Lion, The Scarecrow and The Tin Man as readily as Chinese will recognize Tripitaka, The Monkey King, Pigsy and Sandy.From a roleplayer's perspective, however, the dominance of Tolkien and "European" style fantasy probably comes from the strength and believability of it's worldbuilding. While worldbuilding is undoubtably present in Baum and other early American fantasists (such as my favorite "forgotten" American fantasist, James Branch Cabell), it is weaker, and tends to be much more whimsical and inconsistent - and I find that too much whimsy and inconsistency can be detrimental to suspension of disbelief. Narnia, after all, doesn't get nearly the respect that Middle Earth does in our quarters. Interesting question, overall, and there's plenty of contradiction here.</blockquote>