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What happens between book 9 of the Young Wizards series, A Wizard of Mars, and the forthcoming book 10, Games Wizards Play? Diane Duane answers the question in this volume, collecting together the three canonical works that constitute a "transitional trilogy" between books 9 and 10 -- a 150,000-word extravaganza of untold tales to help keep you going until the tenth book comes out in February 2016.Interim Errantry contains:The novella Not On My Patch, the tale of an unusual Halloween in the Young Wizards' neighborhood, featuring overage Trick Or Treating, suburban zombies, and the Attack of the Killer Pumpkins.The novelette How Lovely Are Thy Branches, a holiday-themed Young Wizards story in which an alien wizard who looks a lot like a Christmas tree gets the gift he wants most -- decorations -- and a memorable party and sleepover party are disrupted by a superblizzard and an incursion of alien ghosts.And finally, the new original Young Wizards novel Lifeboats, the tale of a distant world threatened by unavoidable doom, an intervention that takes thousands of Earth's wizards, young and old, into harm's way, and a Valentine's Day that absolutely doesn't go as planned...So settle down with a pumpkin spice latte (or a hot cocoa, or even just some tea and saltines...) and get ready to enjoy the highlights of autumn 2010 and winter 2011 in the Young Wizards universe!… (more)
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Separate reviews of all three stories follow.
“Not on My Patch” by Diane Duane. ★★★
“Not on My Patch” is a Halloween themed short story from Nita’s perspective. Nita, Kit, Ronan, and Dairine are all going out trick or treating and they run into some mischief. It really doesn’t go much beyond that, although I did love Dairine’s jedi costume.
How Lovely Are Thy Branches by Diane Duane. ★★★★
In How Lovely Are Thy Branches, Carmela holds a Christmas party and invites all our favorite wizards. Carmela’s reason for the party is to finally get Filif dressed up as a Christmas tree, which he was interested in back in Wizard’s Holiday. This was a really sweet story and basically pure fluff. Character interactions were at the forefront.
Lifeboats by Diane Duane. ★★★1/2
Lifeboats is a full 90,000 word Young Wizards story. The planet Tevaral is about to be destroyed by its moon, and a large group of wizards have been recruited to help with the evacuation. The only problem is that a large subset of the population doesn’t want to leave.
Lifeboats is told entirely through Kit’s POV. The other characters do appear, of course, but for the most part Lifeboats is focused on Kit. I was all right with this set up, but I still would have liked more time with the other characters as well. That said, Kit was really the only one who had an impact on the plot, so it makes sense that Duane’s following him (plus this story deals with Kit’s feelings about Ponch).
Diane Duane purposefully wrote Lifeboats to be a different type of Young Wizards story. Instead of a small group of characters working alone, in Lifeboats they are at the periphery of a large group project. Thus, Lifeboats isn’t as climatic as many of the other Young Wizards stories. It is more focused on the emotions of the various characters, particularly Kit. It also gives a different view of wizardry.
The previous two stories were both in the holiday specials vein. This wasn’t as true with Lifeboats, but the story does take place near Valentine’s Day, which gives Duane a handy reason to explore the changes in Nita and Kit’s relationship. In this vein, Lifeboats was a bit more explicit and “teen” than most of the prior stories have been.
Overall, if you’re a fan of the series, I think you’d like this collection.
Not On My Patch is a Halloween novella. It's a fun holiday for the wizards, because it's one of the few occasions on which they can be relatively open with their magic--and this year, it's Tom and Carl's turn to host the "haunted house"
How Lovely Are Thy Branches is a novelette featuring the young wizards' old friend Filif, the tree-like alien wizard who was a houseguest of the Callahans in a previous adventure. Thanksgiving is coming, and Nita is having a very hard time with this first Thanksgiving without her mother. She wishes they could skip right to Christmas--and Kit's sister Carmella pulls Nita into planning a holiday party and sleepover for a few days before Christmas. The guest list will include their offworld wizard friends, including Filif--who has been excited about Christmas ever since he learned Earth people had a holiday involving bringing trees inside and decorating them. This one, unfortunately, is a nice enough story, but very slight.
Lifeboats is a short novel, and the real meat of this collection. The planet of Teveral is about to become uninhabitable; its moon, Thesba, is starting to break up and will rain its fragments down on the planet. There's very little time to move the inhabitants and enough of their biosphere elsewhere to save them, and the job is complicated by the fact that not all the Teveralites are willing to go. It's a huge undertaking, and Nita, Kit, and Ronan are among the wizards drafted to help manage the worldgates that will transfer those willing to evacuate to their new homes. Nita and Kit are assigned to different areas, and Kit spends his off-shift time getting to know colleagues of species he hasn't encountered before, and the Teveralites' octopus-like pets, called sibiks. One of those sibiks gets lost from its owners, who are among the natives refusing to leave, and begs crackers from Kit. And as Kit gets to know this particular sibik, and realizes how much he wants to get back to his family, he also finds an important clue to why so many are refusing to leave. This might be the key to making this intervention more successful than anyone had hoped. This is the strongest of the three stories, and it's funny, heartbreaking, and moving by turns. And while I'm not sure about the other two, this one is published in this collection for the first time, and is Hugo-eligible for the 2016 awards at MidAmericonII.
The is is a very satisfying collection for fans of the Young Wizards. Recommended.
I bought this book.