Description:

The internationally acclaimed author of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury is a magician at the height of his powers, displaying his sorcerer's skill with twenty-one remarkable stories that run the gamut from total reality to light fantastic, from high noon to long after midnight. A true master tells all, revealing the strange secret of growing young and mad; opening a Witch Door that links two intolerant centuries; joining an ancient couple in their wild assassination games; celebrating life and dreams in the unique voice that has favored him across six decades and has enchanted millions of readers the world over.

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From Publishers Weekly

From the sentimental to the spooky, this grab bag of 21 recent tales from the seemingly ageless imagination of Bradbury whimsically explores themes of love, nostalgia, magic, literature and mortality. In his first collection since The Toynbee Connector (1988), Bradbury, who's 76, displays a particular fascination with evading the strictures of time through science, history, literature, the supernatural or simple reminiscence. The realistic "The Other Highway" describes a family's drive down an old, unused highway to an almost forgotten world. "At the End of the Ninth Year" develops the idea that the human body fully remakes itself at the molecular level every nine years. In "Last Rites," an inventor uses his time machine to reassure his literary heroes?Melville, Poe, Wilde?on their deathbeds that they will be cherished by future generations. Ghost stories like "That Woman on the Lawn," "Another Fine Mess" and "The Witch Door" transport characters across lifetimes or centuries, while "Dorian in Excelsus," a creepy homage to Wilde, blends the supernatural with the fitness craze. Some of these pieces wax maudlin, but Bradbury stirs in a healthy measure of wit with his wide-eyed wonder. Fans won't be disappointed with this hopeful, introspective, addition to his oeuvre.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The venerable author of such classic fantasy novels as Something Wicked This Way Comes (1963) offers a new collection of short stories that is slated for a 50,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.