L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen 'Oz' novels before he died. With 'The Gnome King of Oz', his initial successor on that series, Ruth Plumly Thompson, had reached half as many with twelve still to go. It's surely safe to suggest that she was comfortable with the job at this point and she successfully kept up the annual publication schedule throughout, from 1921 to 1939. However, this seventh for her continues an evolution. The story plays out more consistently than some of her earlier books but it's also missing her glorious wordplay for whole chunks at a time. It also continues to retread old ground by framing yet another story around a kidnap. Well, mostly.

In keeping with established tradition, we start in another distant corner of Oz, in Winkie country, where Queen Cross Patch of the Quilties is about to go to pieces. Literally. Hey, it's appropriate for people made of quilts, unlike, say King Fumbo in 'Grampa in Oz', who lost his head. Literally. It does seem increasingly difficult for anyone to hold themselves together in Oz! Anyway, this is not surprising and they can just pop the queen into a bag for ten years and she'll come out fresh, but the Prime Piecer and Chief Scrapper of Patch (which is two people) have to follow the Royal Spool of Succession to figure out who will rule them next.

And, in keeping with new tradition, i.e. the Thompson books, that involves kidnapping yet another character from Oz. First it was the Cowardly Lion and then the Hungry Tiger. After the Royal Spool unrolls down the yellow brick road past the Tin Woodman's tin castle to the Emerald City, at least benefitting from a foot path—a path with feet—it's the Patchwork Girl's turn. Scraps is to become the new Queen of Patch and she doesn't like that in the slightest, not least because the queen has a lot of work to do and she doesn't want to do it. The Scissor Bird makes her. Yes, it's exactly what you might think and it's a scary sight. I wouldn't want one of those diving at me!

Meanwhile, in keeping with time-honoured tradition, another young person from our world finds himself whisked away to Oz. This one's name is Peter and he's sold a green balloon in Philadephia by a tricky salesman who turns out to be the Lord High Bouncer of Balloons. Peter is whisked into the sky by the balloon, which turns out to be a bird, to be given to Queen Luna of Sandaroo. As he doesn't want to be a gift, he lets go and tumbles into the ocean, washing ashore on the island in the Nonestic Ocean on which Ruggedo, former Gnome King, still with a G as per the last couple of times, was banished.

Now, Peter has read at least one Oz book, so knows all about Ozma and Dorothy but not, it seems, Ruggedo, so he's carried along with the dastard's schemes. And those take fruit pretty quickly, as a quake draws back the ocean and exposes a pirate ship that they successfully reach before ocean comes rushing back to refloat them. Of course, they're still damaged, so they can only drift, but it sets them on their way and, by the time they reach Ev and Ruggedo can dethrone Kaliko, which he accomplishes frustratingly quickly, they've been able to explore the ship to see what secrets that it's been keeping under the waves.

It's the Blunderoo, the ship of Polacky the Plunderer, who raided the Island of Ashangabad for its treasure, including the magic casket of Soob the Sorcerer. In turn, that contains a Flying Cloak of Invisibility, which Ruggedo promptly steals right as Peter's about to try it on, but it doesn't work. Neither does an emerald which was in the same casket, but a couple of onion bulbs, once planted, work very nicely, growing rapidly to ludicrous size and dipping them both over the Deadly Desert. I guess it's tradition now to throw in at least one further way to cross this supposedly uncrossable waste!

Now, there's nothing wrong with any of this and it flows nicely, that initial convenience aside, but this is a Ruth Plumly Thompson book. Where's the wordplay? We're halfway through the book now and a huge amount has happened but there's precious little wordplay. Queen Cross Patch went to pieces and the Wizard's foot path whisked her officials towards Scraps, but that's about it. I found myself frantically aching for wordplay, as the single best aspect of the Thompson books. Sure, not all of it hits but most of it does and much of it's neatly clever. I missed it.

Ironically, when the next example shows up, I didn't even realise it. In a little yellow house, Peter and Ruggedo meet a gentleman who has "a strange come-apartishness". He's Kuma Party and it took me far too long to realise that's wordplay, because I was rhyming Kuma with Puma. Bad idea. He's Kuma Party because he can kuma part. His father was a wizard before Ozma banned the use of magic in Oz, so he can lend them a hand. Literally. It takes them all the way to Patch, where the cloak must be repaired. Nobody else can do it, you see, and our two subplots can merge just as we expect, with Scraps recognising Ruggedo.

I did get the rest of the wordplay, as far as I'm aware, and there's fortunately plenty of it, during the more episodic chapters to come. The leads find themselves in a village of soap, whose people are called Suds. Scraps calls Shampoozle, the Sultan of Suds an Insultan and I knew I liked her for a reason. We'll skip quickly over the tar soap slave—yes really!—and run into Ozwald the Oztrich in a Bewilderness. They stop briefly in Tune City, where people sing rather than talk and dance rather than walk. They eat music rolls at the Viol Inn and climb dance steps. How to get out of Tune City, you might ask? Well, get out of tune!

Half of this is as solid a twin thread story as Thompson has told since her first book when she had the Scarecrow fall down his family tree. The other half is much more episodic but boasts far more wordplay, so that evens out. There's a good way to wrap everything up neatly to stop Ruggedo in his tracks yet again. And Peter becomes that rarest of rare characters, someone hailing from our world who chooses to go back to it, though Ozma does let him take some pirate gold with him. We have been told that the Emerald City contains 57,318 gay Ozites, not including Ozma, and nearly a hundred celebrities. Maybe that's too many. Thompson was always good with reunion scenes but they only get more unwieldy with each successive book. For once she nips that problem in the bud.

Having read this as an e-book from Project Gutenberg, I'll be able to dive back into a physical copy next month when Thompson returns with her 1928 'Oz' book, 'The Giant Horse of Oz'. I remember the days when nobody in Oz knew what a horse was, but they've proliferated since then, just as an entirely money-free nation somehow generated businesses, economies and now pirates. I wonder if anyone in the 'Oz' community ever managed to true up all the later inconsistencies. I would like to see Gnome without a G again. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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