Tik-Tok of Oz

1914, undated probably 1970s Reilly & Lee edition
L. Frank Baum
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Tik-Tok of Oz
Bought new for $7.95
Mostly good condition hardcover but with slightly worn corners and a few stains
C+

This is based on the musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which was based on Ozma of Oz and elements of DatW and Road.  So if you feel de ja vu, it's understandable.  For instance, Betsy plucks Rose Princess Ozga, like Dorothy picking a princess in the Vegetable Kingdom.  It gets a bit strange when the Shaggy Man and Polychrome don't remember meeting three books ago, especially when he offers himself as a beau to replace her lost bow.  In Road, Polly looked like she was Dorothy's age, although she seems to be a young lady here.


Perhaps due to the roots in a stage musical, there's also a romance between Ozga (Ozma's distant relative, I'm not sure how that works with plants and fairies) and Private Files, after he resigns from the army.  Queen Ann Soforth (one of the best punny names, and her sister Salye is decades before the comic Sally Forth), the ruler of the very small kingdom of Oogaboo, has decided to conquer the world.  Glinda, who's still living in the north, diverts her army, and so they meet up with Shaggy and friends near the Nome Kingdom.  Files is the only private in the army, similar to Ozma's army in the third book.  When he quits, she drafts Tik-Tok.  Again, Baum makes fun of the military, particularly the officers, here on the edge of WWI.  There's a moment when the Long-Eared Hearer tells the Nome King that there's a war somewhere in the world, and Ruggedo replies, "Bah! there's [sic] always a war!"


Roquat has changed his name but not his personality.  Thanks to the Water of Oblivion, he's forgotten what he was once called but somehow relearned all his wickedness.  He supposedly reforms by the end of the story, but I think his humility is feigned.  Kaliko is the new king, and seems like he'll be a vast improvement, although that will be debatable in Rinkitink.


Shaggy is looking for his long-lost brother, a prisoner of Ruggedo's for ten years, which means probably even at the time of the third book.  The army of Oogaboo joins Shaggy's mission to save his brother, though Shaggy hopes to win over the Nomes using his Love Magnet.  Even as a child, I thought there was something a bit, ahem, queer about the effect this Magnet has on the Royal Gardener, who dresses in pink and ribbons, and "dotes" on Shaggy, calling him a "lovely, lovely man."


(I've skimmed a bit of this early draft of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, from when it was called Ozma of Oz, http://static.nypl.org/MOTM/Ozma/Ozma.txt , and "Gardy" not only tries to embrace Shaggy, but he offers him all the money from his pockets.)


What actually conquers Ruggedo is the adolescent dragon Quox, a 3056-year-old who's being sent by Tititi-Hoochoo as punishment for disrespect to his ancestor, the still living first dragon.  Ruggedo has the would-be invaders pushed through the redundantly named Hollow Tube, where they meet a land of powerful fairies ruled by a private citizen.  The travelers ride on Quox's back but dismiss his help in the conquest until it's almost too late.


Overall, the book is uneven, meandering despite the quest.  I do like some details, like the fog-breathing Rak who politely accepts the Oogaboo Army's previous engagement to conquer the world and doesn't kill them.  Shaggy gets away with breaking the fourth wall when he tells Betsy Bobbin, the Dorothy wannabe, that no one knows what's going to happen next, except the person writing the story.


Betsy was always my least favorite of the four recurring little girl characters.  (Trot is coming up.)  There's nothing wrong with her, but she just seemed redundant.  She of course moves to Oz, after a debate between Ozma, the Wizard, Tik-Tok, and Dorothy about immigration, and immediately becomes besties with Ozma and Dorothy.


Her mule, Hank, also emigrates, and suddenly finds he has the power of speech.  There's no explanation of why he didn't talk in the Nome Kingdom, as Billina did.  Perhaps he didn't know he could.  We do finally find out why Toto doesn't talk, when the Pink Kitten does.  He just doesn't want to, preferring to communicate nonverbally.  He finally says, "All right.  Here I go!"  As I recall, he talks quite a bit more in the eleventh book.


I'm using the "utopias" tag again, even though not much time is spent in Oz, since we learn that Oz "is a Land of Love, and here friendship outranks every quality."  That's debatable, but that's Ozma, whom in the previous book was said to enforce whether people lived in the city or the country.  She's a loving little control freak, our glorious leader is.


The final chapter is called "The Land of Love," and every previous chapter is alliterative, the best of these being "Ruggedo's Rage is Rash and Reckless."

Neill's artwork isn't particularly notable, except for the illustration that spans front cover, spine, and back cover, with a wagon hitched to a frightened-looking Hank.  The passengers are Shaggy, Tik-Tok, and the four main female characters: Polychrome, Betsy, Ozga, and Ann.  Three of these gals (all but Ann) kiss Shaggy's brother, to break the spell of ugliness Ruggedo has cast.  To my surprise, this was not in the musical, or at least not in that early draft.