The central character of the novel is Hank Stover, a pilot and the son of Dorothy Gale, who finds himself in Oz when his plane gets lost in a green cloud over Kansas in 1923.

The Oz he discovers is on the brink of civil war; he encounters Erakna, the new Wicked Witch.

Farmer treats Oz as a parallel universe, and attempts explanations of some of the fantastic elements in Baum's fictional world, including magic and talking animals.

"[1] Opinions of Farmer's contribution to the literature of Oz span the entire critical spectrum; Jack Zipes called the novel "splendid",[2] while Baum biographer Katharine Rogers considered it "revision to the point of debasement.

"[3] Publishers Weekly considered it to be "done with almost no whimsy or humor" and "though ambitious, (...) not one of [Farmer's] better books;"[4] In Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Thomas Easton opined that the novel "will surely appeal best to those who remember Oz fondly.