Now and Forever: Somewhere a Band Is Playing & Leviathan '99 - Ray Bradbury

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This slim volume eloquently displays two sides of the venerated Bradbury (_The Martian Chronicles_) with two highly contrasting tales of the fantastic. Somewhere a Band Is Playing, the quieter piece, explores journalist James Cardiff's unexpected attraction to the rural town of Summerton, Ariz. Summerton's secrets unfold with Bradbury's hallmark pacing, gentle and inexorable, and the plot arcs just as gently into the fantastical before circling back to Cardiff himself. 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. The result, while not at all comfortable, cogently packs Moby Dick's psychological complexity into a quarter of the space, despite the padding of lengthy quasi-Shakespearean dialogue. 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. (Sept.)
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From
Anything new from master fantasist Bradbury's enchanted pen is cause for celebration. Here are two recently completed novellas that simmered in his imagination for decades. In Somewhere a Band Is Playing, budding journalist Cardiff is mysteriously lured to an isolated town in Arizona populated by only adults. While falling in love with the town's pristine beauty and a local belle, Cardiff stumbles across a life-changing secret. Not only are the town's citizens virtually immortal but Cardiff is an ideal candidate to join them. Drawing on Bradbury's screenplay for John Huston's 1956 film Moby Dick, Leviathan '99 transplants the themes and story line of Melville's classic to outer space. Ishmael here is astronaut Ishmael Hunnicut Jones, Queequeg a towering alien named Quell, and Ahab a maniacal, blind starship captain. Instead of a white whale, the captain's nemesis is a planet-devouring comet known as Leviathan. Bradbury's celebrated literary magic will satisfy newcomers and dedicated fans alike. Hays, Carl