Quicker Than the Eye

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. (Nov.)