Now and Forever
Ray Bradbury
Morrow, $24.95, 224 pp.
ISBN 9780061131561

"Somewhere A Band Is Playing". A suitcase is tossed off a moving train followed by James Cardiff jumping off next. He sees a perfect little town with buildings painted fresh, lawns mowed properly and everything seemingly built to perfection. However there are some strange things about the place including the fact there are no children while the cemetery's gravestones have dates of birth but no dates of death. The inhabitants don't age and come from different eras and places and stay forever young. Cardiff returns home with a decision about his future to make. This is a magical tale about a town where no body dies or grows ill. Readers will thoroughly enjoy the fully developed characters who befriend a wandering writer.

"Leviathan '99". In the year 2099 Ishmael journeys to Cape Kennedy to become an astronaut on an interstellar flight. His roommate is the sentient like spider Quell who came from the far islands of the great Andromeda Nebula to learn. They board the ship Cetus 7 captained by a blind man. They are to go on a journey of years tracking and charting three comets. The comet Leviathan blinded the captain and now he intends to destroy the comet. He alone believes will hit earth and destroy it despite what the scientists say. His obsession makes him ignore a ship that escaped after being trapped in Leviathan and made him ignore a mother's plea to find her missing son on a space pod. This homage to Herman Melville is destined to be a classic.

These two fabulous novellas show the vastness and the range of talent of this grandmaster as he scribes a whimsical fantasy and a science fiction version of Moby Dick in space.

Harriet Klausner