Now and Forever
“This slim volume eloquently displays two sides of the venerated Bradbury with two highly contrasting tales of the fantastic. ‘Somewhere a Band Is Playing’…framed by engagingly wistful lyric verse, this classically appealing Bradbury fantasy is at distinct odds with the prickly and disturbing ‘Leviathan ’99.’ In this space-faring homage to Melville, the dread comet Leviathan takes the whale’s place, and Queequeg becomes the enigmatic telepath Quell…[and] cogently packs Moby Dick‘s psychological complexity into a quarter of the space…Bradbury’s brief summaries of each novella’s decades-long path to completion invoke the extraordinary length of one of the most distinguished careers in speculative fiction.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A journalist bearing terrible news leaps from a still-moving train into a small town of wonderful, impossible secrets . . .
The doomed crew of a starship follows their blind, mad captain on a quest into deepest space to joust with destiny, eternity, and God Himself . . .
Now and Forever is a bold new work from an incomparable artist whose stories have reshaped America's literary landscape. Two bewitching novellas—each distinctly different, yet uniquely Bradbury—demonstrate the breathtaking range of his undimmed talent and the irrepressible vitality of the mind, spirit, and heart of America's preeminent storyteller.
Praise