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