Writing to entertain, Baum chose exotic locales and melodramatic elements for these books. "The Fate of a Crown" is set in Brazil, and deals with the revolution of 1889; "Daughters of Destiny" is set even farther afield, in Baluchistan. In Baum's fiction, Baluchistan is still an independent state, though the region had fallen under the sway of the British Empire in the later nineteenth century.