In a just world, this fourteenth book in the 'Oz' series would be called 'The Magic of Oz', because it focuses far more on magic, in its many varied forms, than any one of the thirteen books preceding it. However, if you'll recall, that title was already taken by the previous volume and so couldn't be used again here. Maybe L. Frank Baum might have been tempted to do so, given how often he had either forgotten or ignored crucial details from earlier books so he could move them in fresh new directions, but he died a year before this was published so really didn't have much of a say.

Initially, magic is just a means to kick off a story. Dorothy and Ozma visit Glinda, Dorothy glances into her magic book that records everything—presumably just of importance—that happens in Oz and sees that a major conflict is about to begin. The Skeezers have declared war on the Flatheads and that sounds terrible. Now, neither Glinda nor Dorothy have even heard of the Skeezers or the Flatheads and all Ozma knows is that they're situated at the very far north of Gillikin country, the least known in all of the land.

So much for knowing everybody in Oz! Ozma actually regrets not knowing more about her country and people in this one. "It is my duty," she confesses to Dorothy, as they set off to stop a war, "to be acquainted with every tribe of people and every strange and hidden country in all of Oz, but I am kept so busy at my palace making laws and planning for the comforts of those who live near the Emerald City, that I do not often find time to make long journeys." That doesn't quite gel with the endless parties and reunions we've seen her enjoy so often, but it's something.

By that point, magic has become a means of learning more. Glinda performs some sorcery to find out more about the Flatheads and Skeezers, discovering that there are a hundred of the former, all living on a mountain top, but a hundred and one of the latter, who live on an island in a nearby lake. What's more, they're magic users, like so many of the characters we've met in these books. I wonder if Baum ever regretted mentioning that Ozma had passed a law prohibiting anyone from practising magic except Glinda (and the Wizard and herself), given that, if memory serves, only a single character in fourteen books has actually acknowledged and obeyed that command.

To be fair, it doesn't matter if you pass a law if nobody knows about it, because ignorance is a fair excuse in this instance, Oz being a fairyland, after all. Not only don't the Flatheads and Skeezers know about this law, they don't even know who Ozma is, except for Su-Dic, the Supreme Dictator of the Flatheads, and he doesn't care. As a textbook dictator, he only cares about himself and the power that he wields, without thought for anyone else, least of all his own people. They're called Flatheads because, well, they have flat heads, which doesn't leave room for brains, so they carry those around in tin cans in their pockets.

Now, you might imagine that this makes Flathead brains easy to steal and you'd be spot on, so Su-Dic passed a law to make it illegal. However, the punishment he set for doing so is the forfeiture of the guilty party's own brain to Su-Dic. I wonder how he ended up with not one but three sets of brains! That apparently makes him highly intelligent. It's a different law he passes that prompts the war, though, because he likes fishing in the lake of the Skeezers. They don't like that, because it's theirs, so he passes a law that says he can fish it in anyway, and they like that even less.

That didn't lead immediately to war, but it may have led Queen Coo-ee-oh of the Skeezers, who's a Krumbic witch, to transform Su-Dic's wife into a golden pig, and that certainly prompted Su-Dic to turn her into a diamond swan in return. As such things do, they escalate, and that's why Ozma and Dorothy are travelling north to defuse the tension. We learned in 'The Tin Woodman of Oz' that it isn't easy to do transformation magic. Then we learned in 'The Magic of Oz' that it is, albeit only if you can pronounce PYRZQXGL. Here, Su-Dic and Coo-ee-oh don't even need that.

However, Baum hazards an explanation for this. Ozma has a silver wand that allows her to provide everything she and Dorothy need on the road, so she can conjure up a luxurious tent and a lavish spread of food and comfortable beds just by waving it. However, she can't transport them all the way to Flathead Mountain, because she only has fairy magic, and that, she explains to her rather confused companion, is different from wizardry and sorcery. The Wizard of Oz is a student of the former, while Glinda practises the latter. That's three different forms of magic and, as Ozma has it, "Our magic arts are divided, some being given each of us."

Suddenly, certain things from earlier books make sense, like how Mrs. Yoop in 'The Tin Woodman of Oz', could turn Woot into a green monkey using Yookoohoo magic, but none of the many magic users in the regular cast could turn him back, because their magic is not her magic. It's ironic that Baum was able to finally explain away an inconsistency, almost satisfactorily, only after he'd been dead for a year. Who knows if he'd have done that a lot more had he lived longer. Maybe some of his successors give it a shot anyway. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Anyway, Dorothy and Ozma eventually make it all the way to Flathead Mountain then the Magic Isle of the Skeezers and we can get down to business. All the clues are there to see how the issue can be resolved and they're not too tough to spot, but it's an enjoyable ride even if we figure out where we're going pretty quickly. I enjoyed it a lot more than Baum's new approach to giving the myriad regulars a moment in the spotlight, which is to have Glinda, in response to Dorothy giving her a signal with her magic ring, promptly assemble a Council of State so she can consult with her councillors. Who are they, you might ask? Well, what seems like everybody, of course!

There are some wonderful scenes in this book, Baum's imagination being just as vibrant as ever. I liked the idea of Flathead Mountain being surrounded by an invisible wall with an invisible gate a less patient searcher than Ozma would miss. I liked that the Skeezer city was suspended over the lake by magic and submerged, 'Stargate Atlantis' style, into it as a protective measure. I liked the teamwork needed to solve the problem at the end of the day, even if the setup for it was notably overdone. I even liked that the Wizard lends Glinda his skeropythrope without any explanation of what it is or does, even though the Sorceress promptly uses it in front of us.

More than anything, I liked how this book doesn't feel as episodic as usual. It is, of course, but not to the same degree as normal. It felt like Baum actually knew where he was going with it before a word was written. There's one section that's just like normal and it's the worst section in the book with a handful of obstacles quickly overcome with absolutely no relevance to the wider story. The mist obstacle is especially frustrating, given that its solution arrives merely a heartbeat after the problem, both out of nowhere, for apparently no reason other than to have a brief chapter three.

And, of course, I liked the differentiation between many different forms of magic. There's sorcery, fairy magic, wizardry, Krumbic witchcraft, Yookoohoo magic and maybe more, each of which has a circle of its own on an imaginary Venn diagram of what can be done with magic in the fairyland of Oz. For all that this final Baum volume is called 'Glinda of Oz', she's at her least dominant here, as we finally learn her place on the broad magical spectrum of the series.

Next up, a new author for the series, Ruth Plumly Thompson, who kicks off her tenure as Historian of Oz with 'The Royal Book of Oz'. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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