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

by Ray Bradbury Narrated by Paul Hecht

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator Paul Hecht sounds like my mind’s eye vision of Ray Bradbury in “Somewhere a Band is Playing.” He places the time, early twentieth century, perfectly with a tone and intonation that fit the period. The setting is the American Southwest as seen through the eyes of a Chicago journalist. The story is largely a single-person narrative, and Hecht does a creditable job. In the second piece, “Leviathan ‘99,” Hecht has more scope for his considerable vocal talents. Between the gravelly voiced blind captain and the fuzzy, green telepathic spider, roommate of the main character, Hecht manages a broad spectrum of differing and sometimes whacky vocal gymnastics. His passion and excellent pacing also improve the work of this master storyteller. M.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator Paul Hecht sounds like my mind’s eye vision of Ray Bradbury in “Somewhere a Band is Playing.” He places the time, early twentieth century, perfectly with a tone and intonation that fit the period. The setting is the American Southwest as seen through the eyes of a Chicago journalist. The story is largely a single-person narrative, and Hecht does a creditable job. In the second piece, “Leviathan ‘99,” Hecht has more scope for his considerable vocal talents. Between the gravelly voiced blind captain and the fuzzy, green telepathic spider, roommate of the main character, Hecht manages a broad spectrum of differing and sometimes whacky vocal gymnastics. His passion and excellent pacing also improve the work of this master storyteller. M.C. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170384815
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/07/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Now and Forever
Somewhere a Band Is Playing & Leviathan '99

Chapter One

There was a desert prairie filled with wind and sun and sagebrush and a silence that grew sweetly up in wildflowers. There was a rail track laid across this silence and now the rail track shuddered.

Soon a dark train charged out of the east with fire and steam and thundered through the station. On its way it slowed at a platform littered with confetti, the tatters of ancient tickets punched by transient conductors.

The locomotive slowed just enough for one piece of luggage to catapult out, and a young man in a summer dishrag suit to leap after and land running as the train, with a roar, charged on as if the station did not exist, nor the luggage, nor its owner who now stopped his jolting run to stare around as the dust settled around him and, in the distance, the dim outlines of small houses were revealed.

"Damn," he whispered. "There is something here, after all."

More dust blew away, revealing more roofs, spires, and trees.

"Why?" he whispered. "Why did I come here?"

He answered himself even more quietly, "Because."

Now and Forever
Somewhere a Band Is Playing & Leviathan '99. Copyright © by Ray Bradbury. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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