A review by paperrhino
Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum

4.0

Baum has redeemed himself in my eyes with this, the eighth book in the series of Oz books. Despite the title, the book is primarily about the quest of the Shaggy Man to rescue his brother from the arch villain of Oz, the Gnome King. Despite having his entire memory erased in the previous book, he is still as evil and nasty as ever.

One of the things that had started to turn me off on the Oz books was how the end of the story seemed to come out of nowhere and tie up all the lose ends in a couple of pages. And while this book does some of this it stretches the resolution at the end out over a couple of chapters which made for a much more enjoyable read.

This book is also the first to approach the same sort of wonderful oddness that Lewis Caroll invoked in Alice in Wonderland. The previous books including the first seemed to be pale imitations.

Thus far this is my second favorite of the Oz books, with Ozma of Oz.