This Week's Oz Short Story

Yes, I've been a little busy lately, and didn't manage to read a story last week, and almost didn't this week. Only the change off Daylight Saving Time really gave me the time to read one this morning. So, this week's excerpt from A New Wonderland was "The Cast-Iron Man", the story of how jealous King Scowleyow (and with a name like that, you know he must be wicked) created a giant cast-iron man (hence the title) to run rampant over and squash Phunnyland. Of course some clever, if not necessarily logical, thinking saved the day, and Mo. Scowleyow struck me this time as a prototype of the Nome King, in that he has his subjects all working in the mines to extract precious resources. The Cast Iron Man, meanwhile, can be seen as a precursor to Tik-Tok and the Giant with the Hammer in Ozma of Oz.