So can we actually discuss the book now? (SPOILERS WITHIN)

[Agent M]

EXACTLY!!! I bet the LP took the adults captive sorta and now it's trying to create mass depression and chaos in the world because it doesn't think the kids can handle it!!!

*Agent~M*

"Thank you Jack" "Your welcome" "No not you, we named the monkey Jack" -Pirates of the Caribbean
"To youth and freedom!" A popular pirates toast.

[FireWitch]

I just finished the Holiday and I really liked it!
One of the things that I noticed it that almost every singe question that we posted in the nitpickery got answered:
Dairine's connection to the mobiles, Nita's bunkbed and glasses...

My favorite funny moment in this book HAD to be when they went to the mall with Mella. It was SOOOOOOO funny when Roshaun...erm...misinturpreted that...erm...remark...It was incredibly funny.

I know that this may sound weird but I kept getting the idea that there were romances here and there that we just about to come out, but didn't. I really thought that Dairine was going to fall for Roshaun...

I really liked the idea of too much perfection holding people back. I also really like the end bit when they were at the planet's core. It almost perfectely mirrored this quote that I have saved:
"'come to the edge'
'we can't, we're afraid'
'come to the edge'
'we can't, we will fall'
'come to the edge'
and they came,
and she pushed them,
and the flew."

A Jedi Ewok
And proud of it...

Loyal reader of Harry Potter and Young Wizards books and great lover of Moon Cakes...

[PK]

and now it's trying to create mass depression and chaos in the world because it doesn't think the kids can handle it!!!

Well, that seems rather silly of It, considering how often It gets thwarted by those meddling kids. *pauses to be very weirded out by the thought of the Lone Power as a Scooby-Doo villain*

Hmm.... I still think the senior/advisory wizards are actually involved in the early stages of the conflict. But perhaps not. If not, I wonder how the Lone Power managed to miss the Galactic Arm Coordinator.

FireWitch, I noticed the little answers-to-questions too. Just casually dropped in different places, some of them.... It was neat. Nice quote, by the way; it does fit. (I'm also inclined to suggest "The good is the enemy of the best": not always true, to be sure, and probably often an overstatement even where it partially applies -- but every now and then we do choose between contentment with 'good enough' and taking on the risk and effort for 'ever so much more.')

*hopes quietly for an active role for mobiles in the next book... "With!"*

[FireWitch]

The one thing that really diappointed me was that we never got to hear Kit's reaction to Roshaun having a crush on his sister. THAT would have been soooooo FUNNY!

A Jedi Ewok
And proud of it...

Loyal reader of Harry Potter and Young Wizards books and great lover of Moon Cakes...

[EWizard11]

Yes! I got it!! And read it!! Ahahahahaha...ha About the adult wizards being taken captive, I very much doubt it because of the scene that Nita heard between Tom and her dad...what was that about? What had happened that Tom was so worried about? Or is it something very obvious that I'm missing...? This makes me more inclined to believe that wherever the adults are, they're there by their own choice...and that it has something to do with the title of the next book.

I felt that what happened with the Alaalids was very...right. It was supposed to happen. I did find myself wondering, however, how it's possible that a wizard could ever go somewhere, especially a foreign planet, without something happening! What Nita and Kit did counted as an intervention, didn't it? And the vacation was supposed to be strictly noninterventional. Nothing happens accidentally...

I loved the exchange wizards, especially Filif. Roshaun was annoying, and I have to admit I was hoping that he wouldn't come back from the Sun... just kidding. But I still didn't really like him. The scene at the mall and with Filif and the baseball cap were both hilarious. Carmela was wonderful.
The little cliffhangery ending was absolutely infuriating! This book and Wizards at War seem much more connected than any of the other books have been. I loved it!

*Ella*

"'I wish none of this had happened.'
'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.'"
-The Fellowship of the Ring

Originally posted by EWizard11:
...About the adult wizards being taken captive, I very much doubt it because of the scene that Nita heard between Tom and her dad...what was that about? What had happened that Tom was so worried about? Or is it something very obvious that I'm missing...?

That scene was one that Diane Duane posted in her weblog on 9/11. Nita's Father must have asked why the wizards couldn't stop 9/11 from happening thats why he apoligized at the end. I think Tom was talking about how he and all of the other wizards regreted what happened on 9/11, and that they need to keep their eyes open for other changes that could lead to anouther instance like 9/11... that instance could be why all of the head wizards are gone, they must of seen anouther change that could lead to anouther 9/11, but this time this change could effect the whole world, or even later effect all of the galaxy's and universe's out there. That could be what the next book is about, all of the wizards fighting to keep that 'change' from happening...hmmmmm

" Duct tape, the stuff that holds the universe together."A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
- Serena

[Agent M]

But how could it be about 9/11? By the year that 9/11 happened Nita and Kit would have been adults and also wouldn't Dairiene say something about it?

*Agent~M*

"Thank you Jack" "Your welcome" "No not you, we named the monkey Jack" -Pirates of the Caribbean
"To youth and freedom!" A popular pirates toast.

[Diane Duane]

It says here, in the afterword to the 20th anniversary edition of SYWTBAW:

"As of 2003, Nita is fourteen in her world, but it's taken twenty of our years for her to reach that age. I doubt she'd be overly concerned by this seeming paradox, assuming that she ever came to perceive herself as fiction (and in wizardry, stranger things have happened.). In Nita's world, as in mine, it's always now."

You figure it out.

-- DD

[Kathy Li]

She simply inhabits the same time-continuum that all comic book superheroes do. I mean, Peter Parker's been in his twenties for, what... forty years, now?

[Agent M]

Hmm.. I never thought of that... But that makes sense. But still, if it was 2003 I repeat my question: Wouldn't Dairiene have mentioned something?

*Agent~M*

"Thank you Jack" "Your welcome" "No not you, we named the monkey Jack" -Pirates of the Caribbean
"To youth and freedom!" A popular pirates toast.

[db_pr]

Well if the new book is in 2003 then Dairine is 19 years old (Wich we all know she isn't) . Because her parents bought an Apple IIc+ On High Wizardry. That computer was developed in 1984. If you don't beleive me, go to www.apple-history.com .
I haven't read A Wizard's Holiday but I was just soooo tempted with that (SPOILERS WITHIN) note that I just couldn't stop myself... I can't wait till it gets here...

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." -Bilbo Baggins (The Fellowship of the Ring: J.R.R. Tolkien)
"Not all who wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." - (Yogi Berra)after being told he looked cool

Wait, why do you think Darine would say something about it? It did happen two years ago, so it is two years to them too. Why would she bring it up randomly? I guess Nita's Dad must have mentioned something, and thats why they were talking about it then....i don't think i'm making any sense.
Tsk-tsk db_pr, you don't want to spoil the book...

" Duct tape, the stuff that holds the universe together."A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
- Serena

[Agent M]

No actually Serena that made perfect sense... To me at least.

*Agent~M*

"Thank you Jack" "Your welcome" "No not you, we named the monkey Jack" -Pirates of the Caribbean
"To youth and freedom!" A popular pirates toast.

[EWizard11]

Odd though, it didn't sound like it had happened two years past-it sounded like it had happened much less time ago than that. Plus, if it had happened 2 years ago, then why would all the seniors & them be gone?

*Ella*

"'I wish none of this had happened.'
'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.'"
-The Fellowship of the Ring

Ella- Great question! Maybe they've just spotted anouther event that could change everything for the worse if they didn't make the right choice. The head wizards must have been on the look out for anouther one of those events. But you also have to remember that Diane Duane didn't just right the book out of thin air. she knew she was going to write another book after a wizard alone. Remember when the excerpts first came up? That was a while ago. She must have had the first few drafts done way before then. So who knows maybe 9/11's 1st annivarsy was around the day she decided to put in that part about 9/11. Maybe Diane Duane wrote that part when 9/11 happened and then made it part of the plot and possibly part of the plot for the next book. Who know's? Maybe Diane Duane just put that part there and it has nothing to do with all of the seniors missing

" Duct tape, the stuff that holds the universe together."A Wizard Alone by Diane Duane
- Serena