When Kit and Nita are sent to join wizard teams transferring populations from a doomed planet the task seems overwhelming. Managing the transit gates is difficult but not impossible and duty shifts even leave time for intercultural exchange. But a portion of the planet's population is refusing to leave and all are frustrated by the potential loss of life. Kit's ability to bond with other life forms, the semi-intelligent pets of the population turns out to be the key. In the meantime Kit and Nita are trying to cope with the change in their relationship as they each mature. ( )

This is a collection of three shorter Young Wizards stories.

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" that rotates among the local senior wizards. At the start of the story, Nita is reluctant to cut into the pumpkin that is supposed to be the Callahan family's jack o'lantern, but she finally does what any wizard would do: asks it. Jackie has an entirely different perspective on life and death than animal life, and is happy to be a jack o'lantern. Nita's wizard friends are a little amused when they realize she's named it, slightly concerned when she refers to Jackie as "he," and of course it's inevitable that Jackie will become a key factor in resisting a sneak attack by the Lone Power, who tries to make Halloween really scary again. This was a lot of fun.

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. ( )

Three satisfying tales set in the Young Wizards universe. Duane’s first two stories are silly and holiday-themed, and her Halloween one even manages to put a new twist on fighting zombies. The third entry, a novella called “Lifeboats”, is a winning mix of seriousness and humor (like life itself, especially in these post-election days). It’s wonderful to read a story that doesn’t rely on huge spells to save the day, but the smallest and seemingly non-magical of interventions. Though I naturally love the longer novels (and am eagerly awaiting Book 12), I will happily take more of these shorter ones too. ( )

Lovely. I had read the first two sections - Not On My Patch and How Lovely Are Thy Branches - when they came out; Lifeboats was new to me. But I read all three this time, of course - Duane always rewards rereading. Not On My Patch is Halloween-themed, and has some lovely bits about the costumes Kit, Nita, Dairine, Tom and Carl choose to wear, and Tom and Carl's haunted house. And some interesting vegetative philosophy - actually, I'm surprised it's taken Nita this long to talk to a fruit and see what it thinks about being used. She has had some discussions along similar lines with trees... The actual battle is lovely - nicely flowing from the previous discussions, and beautifully handled. And Tom's arrival at the end is quite amusing. Then How Lovely Are Thy Branches is Christmas-themed (with a very good reason for skipping Thanksgiving). We get some more info on how Carmela (and Nita) are regarded at the Crossings, the return of a lot of good friends, and a fantastic party (one I'd have loved to go to!). Filip is the center, and we learn quite a lot about him - but also quite a lot about Kit and Nita, and others. And a couple of brats learn a real lesson. Oddly enough there's this big threatening blizzard - which really doesn't have any effect on the party, not sure why it was in the story at all. Then Lifeboats, which isn't Valentine's Day themed but has that as a subplot - it's mostly Kit in this one, with Nita and Ronan, among others, playing smaller parts. Some new friends, and Mamvish passing through at times. And an amazing amount of double entendres and highly embarrassing conversations... the candy hearts were really amusing. And all of this is background to a major intervention in which Kit and Nita are _not_ the stars/center stage/focus - they're helping, in a massive group of at least thousands of wizards. Though it's Kit, and Ponch (sort of) who end up being the key to a solution - more or less accidentally. I've always liked that story; it conveys so much. Now it will have a new resonance for me. Lovely set of stories, definitely worth rereading. And I'm looking forward to Games Wizards Play and seeing how what happened here shakes out in the larger story. ( )

Interim Errantry is actually a bundle of a short story, a novella, and a short novel all set in the Young Wizards universe. These stories were all published independently by Diane Duane, and they are basically extra material for the fans. I don’t think knowledge of any of them will be required for the upcoming tenth book, but I wouldn’t recommend these stories to people who haven’t read the prior Young Wizard books, which start with So You Want to Be a Wizard.

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. ( )