Gregory Maguire’s sequel to Wicked was not as good, but it’s still an interesting story. The son in the title is a boy named Liir, though it is important to note that it is not made clear throughout either of the books whether or not he really is the son of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

The story opens with the discovery of Liir’s body laying in an open grassfield in the middle of the night. Nearly every bone in his body is completely broken, but he is still breathing. He is taken to a mauntery nearby to be cared for by the maunts and a young girl named Candle. The maunts wonder if he was attacked by the same brutal forces that had been attacking others in recent weeks and forced most of rural Oz to go into hiding for fear of their lives. As Liir lays there unconscious, we delve into the memories of his past.

Through the memories, we watch Liir grow from the fourteen year old boy at the time of Elphaba’s murder into a man who struggles to find his purpose in life. His story starts right after Dorothy’s dissolving of Elphaba in the tower at Kiamo Ko. All of a sudden, Liir has no one left in his life, except Chistery, the witch’s Snow Monkey, and Nanny, the senile old woman that barely remembers what year it is, let alone his name. Worried that he’ll be alone, he decides to begin searching for his possible half-sister, Nor, who had been taken prisoner by the Wizard’s army a short time earlier along with her mother and the rest of her family when soldiers invaded Kiamo Ko in an attempt to get the witch, who had, unbeknownst to them, flown away earlier for family business.

So Liir gathers together what’s left of Elphaba (her cape and broom) and decides to accompany Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion back to the Emerald City to see the Wizard and ask him for help finding Nor. Along the way, they encounter Princess Nastoya of the Scrows. Princess Nastoya is an Elephant who is partly stuck in the human form that was cast upon her to protect her from the rounding up of Animals during the Wizard’s reign. The Princess tells him she’ll keep an eye out of Nor if he promises to look for Elphaba’s lost Grimmerie, a book of spells, that will help her return to her true Elephant form so that she can die in peace. And so Liir now has two missions for his life: to find Nor and the Grimmerie.

When he arrives at the Emerald City, he is denied access to see the Wizard, and is promised by Dorothy and the others that they will meet up with him later that evening and figure out a way to help him find Nor. Of course, Dorothy is helped back to Kansas, and the others desert him. All but the Scarecrow, who comes back to him in time to tell him to leave the Emerald City as it’s about to get very ugly with the new transition in power now that the Wizard has literally flown the coop.

They spend the night exploring the Emerald City together, and Liir discovers Southstairs, the prison beneath the city, and his first clue as to where Nor could have been taken. He decides to present himself to Lady Glinda, the temporary new head of government, and ask for her help to get into Southstairs to search for Nor.

And this is truly where the story begins. Once in Southstairs, he discovers that Nor managed to escape and no one knows where, in all of Oz, she could be. Liir decides he will join the army, figuring it will provide him with a place to sleep and eat as he no longer has a home, and he can possibly use their resources to find Nor.

Years go by with not much happening. Lady Glinda steps down and hands over the government to the Scarecrow. Liir excels at his role in the army and grows up. They are shipped out to a mission in Quadling country for a few years, which is non-eventful for a long time until the Scarecrow’s government is taken over by the self-proclaimed Emporer, who turns out to be Liir’s possible uncle and Elphaba’s brother, Shell. Shell is a sick man, and he orders his army to cause an uproar among the people in Quadling country so that he has the opportunity to try out a new militant force, the vicious dragon squandron. As there is no reason to stir up these peaceful people, a reason has to be invented, and Liir, the excellent soldier, is chosen to carry out the mission. Ever the faithful soldier, Liir does what he is instructed to do without reason. It is only afterwards that he realises the extent of the violence and horror that has resulted from his actions.

Out of his guilt, Liir uses Elphaba’s broom to flee the army. As he is escaping, he is attacked and left for dead, bringing the story back to the beginning when he is found and brought to the mauntery.

The second half of the book begins with Liir’s awakening and being nursed back to health by Candle in a farm not far from the mauntery. As his bones mend, he discovers he is right back to where he started from after Elphaba’s death. He hasn’t found Nor or the Grimmerie, and since he has fled the army, he has no position in life. Candle urges him to finish what he has started, and he finds the determination to find those that attacked him and to continue his search for Nor and the Grimmerie.

This is where the story begins to pick up pace, but also where it starts to fall apart. The second half of the book is devoted to Liir finding out who attacked him, but very little is devoted to finding Nor or the Grimmerie. In fact, all Maguire has managed to do is spend a lot of words telling side stories just so that he can open up the opportunity for another sequel. Why? because at the end of the story, Liir hasn’t managed to accomplish either of the goals he set out for himself. He hasn’t found either Nor or the Grimmerie, but something major does happen right at the end to suggest there will be more to this story.

Even so, the story is well-written and imaginative. Like Wicked before it, it contains a lot of politics. However, this time around, with the knowledge of Wicked and the political landscape of that book as a basis, I found it easier to understand and follow. Also, in Wicked, politics and religion were discussed ad nauseam through dialogue that could get long and tedious to follow, but in this novel, the politics are played out more through its events, which I found to be a better way for understanding.

That being said, I don’t think this is a book that could be read without having read Wicked first. By reading Wicked first, you have a sensitivity for Elphaba and the first glimpses of Liir’s hard life as a child that help establish his motivations from the very beginning of this book. If you didn’t read Wicked first, you might wonder why so many people proclaim that “Elphaba lives”, and that the so-called Wicked Witch of the West is considered a champion of rights and a check to government’s actions.

It was an interesting enough read, but not outstanding enough to want to read it quickly.