“Interim Errantry” by Diane Duane

Having finally finished the cats series, I have now turned to a book of short stories Duane wrote about the characters in the Young Wizards series. They’re really cute! All of the stories take place between A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play.

The first story takes place on Halloween. Nita befriends her pumpkin, and the night takes a turn for the eventful when the pumpkin senses something happening at its patch. Turns out that a horde of zombies are attacking there. Nita, Kit, Ronan, Darryl, and Dairine fight them off, using the power of the pumpkin. It’s a cute story, I especially loved the pumpkin addition.

Next is one about Christmas. Kit’s sister Carmela wants to throw a Christmas party where the main festivity is decorating Filif as a Christmas tree. He loves getting dressed up, and even holds a lit candle at one point, overcoming a fear he had earlier in the series. Filif also fends off the neighborhood boys who love destroying things when they try to take his decorations. This might be my favorite of the three, it’s really heartwarming. And of course it’s about our favorite tree wizard!

Finally there’s a story where the human wizards are sent to a planet to evacuate the beings there as their moon is about to fall onto the planet. It is all from Kit’s perspective, though Nita, Ronan, Dairine, Tom, and Carl are all there as well. The problem is that a lot of the beings there don’t want to leave the planet, and have to be left to make their own decisions. Venting his frustration, Kit talks about this to a species of like octopus pet on the planet. Quickly after that, the species changes its mind and they all get off of the planet. This is the longest story, and it is really nice to have one from Kit’s perspective as well. It's also cute because it references Kit’s connection with Ponch and how he was able to get through to the dog-equivalent on this planet as well.

The afterword is also interesting, it talks about how Duane has been wanting to talk about the more ordinary occurrences in the Young Wizards universe. Because not everything can be about how the world is ending for these guys. And it also talks about how she consulted on a movie that dealt with a moon falling on its planet and the scientific accuracy… left some things to be desired. It is quite nice knowing that she’s an author who does her research haha.

I really liked these, I hadn’t read them before but it is like reading a new book in the series since it is quite long and talks so much about the characters. I especially liked getting to know Filif a little better! There’s another installment of short stories I’ll be reading next and am quite excited about!