Diane Duane: Lifeboats

Diane Duane's Young Wizards novella Lifeboats is a look at a somewhat different side of errantry - the kind that may still be high-stakes, but isn't full of adventure and derring-do.

A planet is about to die. Tevaral's massive moon Thesba is breaking apart and when it does, the planet will at best become uninhabitable, and at worst will slowly break up itself. Hundreds of thousands of wizards from species all over the universe - including Kit and Nita and most of thrir wizardly friends - are called to aid in a massive refugee action: to hold open worldgates to new planets where as much of the biosphere, the cultural artefacts and the beings that inhabit Tevaral can be relocated before the end comes. It's a hard job - worldgates are difficult to manage at the best of times, but when you have so many thousands of them operating non-stop in one place, and so many different stresses on them, the gates need constant support and surveillance. It's work that's tedious and nerve-wracking by turns.

And there's another problem. Not all of the Tevaralti are willing to be rescued, and they have not been able to explain why. The wizards responsible for the relocation efforts know they must respect this decision - but still hope that if they can discover why some of the Tevaralti feel this way, they can find a way to change their minds.

What makes the story really work is that, given the nature of shift work, the wizards involved in the rescue effort have time to visit and socialise, to keep their spirits up in the midst of such a vast dislocation. With Kit as the focal point, the reader meets his new wizardly colleagues Djam and Cheleb, follows his developing relationship with Nita, and enjoys getting to know the rest of the gang a little better - including some insight into how one species might make use of low-carb ketchup.

But ultimately, like all of Duane's Young Wizard works, there is a deep and deeply satisfying philosophical message, and one that spoke very strongly to me: "life is better."

Sherwood Smith: Fair Winds and Homeward Sail

Jane Austen created many memorable characters, painting rich and detailed portraits not only of her remarkable heroines, but of all the people around them. Sherwood Smith, in her novella Fair Winds and Homeward Sail: Sophy Croft's Story, has given us a fresh new look at one of Austen's more intriguing secondary characters, the sister of Persuasion's hero Frederick Wentworth.

Sophy Croft is a navy wife, who would rather be on board with her husband, even in the midst of war, than be left behind on safer shores. Sensible, practical, warm, friendly - she is a rock of comfort in the sea of excitable, haughty, frivolous, status-conscious, and otherwise flawed women that people Persuasion, and an example of the kind of woman that the heroine Anne Elliot can become, if fortune favours her.

How did Sophy come to be thus? What is her background - and by extension, the background of her brother Frederick, the man who captures Anne's heart?

Smith answers these questions in a fashion that is both true the the character Austen created, and satisfying to the Austen reader who always longs for just one more peek into the worlds that Austen crafted.