This was Ruth Plumly Thompson's third 'Oz' novel and it's easily the most traditional thus far. She had kept much of the mindset across the first two, while introducing a lot more wordplay to stamp her own style onto the series. That's more consistent here, though some examples are very much one-time jokes, but the story unfolds in two strands that quickly connect, though that technically happens twice, the first two that connect becoming the first strand in the second pair. Otherwise, it's ruthlessly episodic and unfolds with mostly new characters encountering some old favourites. It's not quite Baum, especially with an adult in the lead for once, but it's a lot closer.

We start out in a new corner of Oz, Mudge being in Munchkin country to the southwest. However, they're almost entirely isolated, on account of a history of Mudgers raiding their neighbourhood. Glinda put a stop to that long ago, decreeing that henceforth any Mudger to leave Mudge would lose his head. And so, quite naturally, none of them have since that point. However, nobody goes in either, because Mustafa of Mudge likes lions and his Royal Reservation, which is packed full of nine hundred and ninety nine and a half lions, surrounds Mudge, so anyone visiting would have to go through them.

Now Mustafa wants another lion and there simply aren't any left in Mudge to hunt, not even that other half a lion because that's outside the city. The only lion anyone can think of is the Cowardly Lion, because he's listed in a book that wannabe chamberlain Panapee hauls out. Of course, he's a famous lion in Oz, but if he's the only other one outside Mudge, then Mustafa wants him. You can see the catch, of course. If nobody can leave Mudge to hunt the Cowardly Lion, they're stuck until someone from outside comes in.

Meanwhile, in Stumptown, somewhere in our world, is a circus and a clown accidentely sends both an orphan and himself to Mudge by reciting a verse that turns out to be a magical Oz incantation. It seems like a pretty easy way to get in, but it only dumps you into Mudge, which doesn't seem to be a particularly pleasant part of Oz. Rather conveniently, of course, it might get you there right as Mustafa needs someone to embark on a mission, with careful controls to ensure you do exactly what he wants. That's what happens to Notta Bit More, the clown, and Bob Up, the orphan, whose name is actually Bobbie Downs; Notta, whose real name may or may not be Augustus Elmer More, renames him to Bob Up because it sounds more lively.

Between them, they account for two-thirds of the primary characters and they're promptly sent in search of the third, in order to capture him and deliver him to Mudge. Meanwhile, in the Emerald City, the Cowardly Lion is feeling a little depressed. He believes that the courage he got from the Wizard of Oz way back in the very first book has worn off, but Scraps, the surreal Patchwork Girl, is happy to offer a solution. All he has to do is find a brave man and devour him and that'll restore a serious amount of courage. So off he wanders to find the bravest man in Oz for lunch. Of course, it isn't long before these two halves of the plot stumble onto each other and join forces.

I rather like Notta, whose name is a gift that keeps on giving as the best running joke in the book. He's an adult character, which is unusual for the lead in an 'Oz' book, but he bounces around like a child. His job is clown and he maintains facepaint as long as he can in Oz, but he's a real tumbler of a clown, spending as much time on his hands as his feet. He has rules of engagement for anywhere he goes and a supply of disguises concealed in his outfit. These lead to the jokes. Who he is? Well, he's Notta Lion, that's for sure. Notta Wizard. Notta Bear. Bob Up is very much a sidekick and has zero chance of carrying this adventure on his own.

It's good to see the Cowardly Lion given such prominence too, though he's essentially a sidekick as well. Even his quest was given to him by Scraps, not that it's the point of the book. Once he meets up with Notta and Bob, it turns episodic in true Baum style and, like Baum and indeed Thompson in early novels, their subsequent adventures are a mixed bag, the worst of them over and done in no time flat and the best of them capably milked and layered for much longer. There's nothing at all wrong with the Kingdom of Doorways, the Preservatory or the Fiddlestick Forest of Oz, except that we're in and out of all of them. Don't blink, you'll miss them.

The peach here is the Land of Un, which our leads find themselves in after being caught in a net by a tree, who promptly flings them powerfully up into the air. They arrive in the Land of Un, which is a skyle, or isle in the sky. I like that. While the king is named in 'Who's on First?' style, making him a one-time funny, it works that one time, announced as "His Majesty, I-wish-I-was, King of Un'. The longer joke is in these Featherheads each being named Un-something. I-wish-I-was dubs his three visitors Unnatural, Unpleasant and Uninteresting. Then again, they're Bad Uns.

I liked all the scenes in Un, which sounds like an appropriate name to sit alongside Oz and Ev and Mo, and whatever other Baum creations only had two letters, but it has deeper meaning. Better still, I enjoyed the characters there and their motivations. The Uns don't want these newcomers, so send them fishing on the edge of the skyle and wait to push them off. Bob Up does well at this, catching a cooked goose—yes, his goose is already cooked—, then a Skye terrier and eventually a dream. There's even a lot of sky traffic here: castles, caravans, ships, chariots, even a princess on the back of a swan. This is a gloriously rich section.

Of course, most of these characters aren't likely to become regulars but some have to, because it became an abiding 'Oz' tradition with book two. Notta and Bob are relatively normal characters, both human, even if one's an acrobat and the other an orphan. Most new regulars are far weirder than that and that's where Snorer comes in. It's a bird, about the size of a small child, but with an impressively unusual beak. It starts out like you might expect but curves up and back to its ear, as a telephone of the time did. That way, when it snores, which it does loudly and profusely, it wakes itself up to stop itself snoring. I could see Snorer reappearing in future books.

All in all, this is a quick and enjoyable Thompson novel that's told far closer to Baum's established style than her previous two, but with plenty of her patented wordplay. With minor exceptions, it's quite a lot of fun and I had an absolute blast on the skyle of Un. However, the only other note that I should call out is that there's use of a quote here that I wasn't expecting to see, as I thought it's more of a meta thing. When the Cowardly Lion first stumbles on Notta and Bob, the latter has an important question. "Are you a friend of Dorothy's?"

Fast forward decades from this 1923 novel and that became code used by gay men to identify each other. I first encountered it at work in the eighties, in regards to the first person I ever met who was both gay and out. I knew it was a reference to 'The Wizard of Oz' but I thought it was general in concept, referring more to Judy Garland's Dorothy as a camp icon than a specific quote. Well, it appears to be the latter. I had zero expectations of learning anything from 'The Cowardly Lion of Oz' going in but there you have it.

Next up, it looks like there's another adult lead being introduced in 'Grampa in Oz'. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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