L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856–May 6, 1919) was an American author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker, best known today as the creator, along with illustrator William Wallace Denslow, of one of the most popular books in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was made into an iconic 1939 film.

L. Frank Baum in The War That Came Early
L. Frank Baum was the author of the Oz series of children's books. While growing up in New York City, Pete McGill had read the books, as had most other American children of his generation.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was adapted into the film The Wizard of Oz in 1939. McGill and Vera Kuznetsova went to see the film in a Shanghai cinema in the summer of 1940. During the screening, terrorists affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party detonated a bomb in the cinema. McGill suffered severe injuries from the bomb while Kuznetsova was killed instantly.

L. Frank Baum in Southern Victory
Lyman Frank Baum was an American journalist and author of popular children's books. Despite being nearly 60 years old, Baum was a fighter pilot on the Canadian Front at the beginning of the Great War.

Canadian housewife-turned-terrorist Mary McGregor Pomeroy read Baum's Queen Zixi of Ix to her son Alec. She enjoyed the story, even though it was written by a "Yank."

See also Inconsistencies in Turtledove's Work