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Tik-Tok: 08/27/24

Tik-Tok

Tik-Tok by Candace Robinson and Amber R. Duell (2021) is the conclusion of the Faeries of Oz romance series. It ends with the relationship between Tik-Tok and North, the daughter of Tin. They meet because of a twenty year old prophesy involving a woman with portal magic. North happens to fit the bill and that's why Tik-Tok kidnaps her.

This final volume has two things that set my teeth on edge: kidnapping and revenge. Although North seems willing to help once she's kidnapped her agency is tied up in a need to survive and a need to get home. Where is the romance in that?

Then there's Tik-Tok, here a broken man turned pirate from another dimension. He has a golden mechanical arm, something he did to himself to make the prophesy come true and to protect himself from magic. Tik-Tok has lived free and clear of his abusive father, the single survivor of a horrific event, and all he needs to do is live his life to its fullest and leave his father festering in the other dimension. There's no need to open the portal except to get revenge.

Now in all fairness to the source material, Tik-Tok, the original mechanical man, does in fact go through a portal. It's a tunnel that goes through the center of Fairyland to a place not on the official Oz and surrounding areas map. It is a charred wasteland, one inhabited by a dragon.

The other thing that irked me all the way through the series is the way the men in the books often end up sounding like Ferengi erotica with the over use of "female" as a noun. It also further removes the women of the books from their agency.

Like the original Oz books, these Fairies of Oz books have titles that aren't about the protagonists of the volume. Here the titular characters are the romantic interest of the main character, even though these books are written in alternating POV chapters. With the exception of Ozma, all the titular characters are male. In this last book, Ozma and Jack have are the parents of a newborn and it's only logical to assume Jack is the mother. (It's not stated in this volume, and I can't recall if the baby is mentioned in the previous volume).

Chart showing the placement of the four books in the series on the Road Narrative Spectrum.

Like the previous books and the series that inspired them, Tik-Tok sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Tik-Tok and North as a couple (33) travel to a utopia (FF) (the other dimension) via the labyrinth (99) as represented by the ways in which Tik-Tok and North both have to transform themselves to open the portal.

Three stars

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