Tik-Tok of Oz

Several unlikely journeys converge beneath Oz in L. Frank Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz. Queen Ann Soforth leaves tiny Oogaboo with an army of seventeen men, hoping to conquer Oz. Glinda redirects their route beyond the country's mountains. Elsewhere, a storm washes Betsy Bobbin and her mule Hank ashore near the Rose Kingdom, where the Shaggy Man's Love Magnet saves them from punishment.

The travelers leave with Rose Princess Ozga and learn why the Shaggy Man came: his brother vanished after digging underground, and he suspects the Nome King. They meet Polychrome and rescue Tik-Tok from a well. Once Tik-Tok is wound up, the group encounters Queen Ann and her army. Private Files refuses an order to bind innocent girls, exposing the comic mismatch between the army's grand ranks and its limited moral authority.

The Nome King turns that gathering into a threat. He tries to divert the party through Rubber Country and the Hollow Tube, a passage to the opposite side of the world. There Tittiti-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin, responds to the Tube's misuse and sends them back with Quox, an unhurried dragon carrying an unusual means of vengeance. Baum combines rescue quest, military parody, and mechanical fantasy as rival ambitions collide underground.