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Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

Why we're reading this: #79 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#27 on L…more
[close] #79 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#27 on Locus Magazines Best Fantasy novels of the 20th century http://www.locusmag.com/2012/AllCentu...

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Mar 07, 2013 Scott Firestone rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Great Ray Bradbury Re-Read 2017: Back in middle school and high school I read practically everything that Bradbury wrote. When I went to rate them once I joined Goodreads, I was going off of memory from 20+ years ago. So I thought it would be good to read them again with all of my life experiences.

My read of Something Wicked This Way Comes has interesting timing. This year Son the Elder will be the same age as Will and Jim: 13. Also this year, I'll be the same age Bradbury was when he wrote The Great Ray Bradbury Re-Read 2017: Back in middle school and high school I read practically everything that Bradbury wrote. When I went to rate them once I joined Goodreads, I was going off of memory from 20+ years ago. So I thought it would be good to read them again with all of my life experiences.

My read of Something Wicked This Way Comes has interesting timing. This year Son the Elder will be the same age as Will and Jim: 13. Also this year, I'll be the same age Bradbury was when he wrote this. I just find that interesting.

Young Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade meet a lightning-rod salesman one evening, who tells them a storm is coming, and he's right. The storm comes in the form of Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, which arrives suddenly to turn the town upside down.

The main way the carnival entices people is with the promise of increasing or decreasing age. Jim wants to be older. Charles, Will's father, wants to be younger. But they both see the perils in this, even as they're tempted. People who succumb to the temptation end up as slaves of the dark carnival. Having first read this as a young man, I didn't understand the pivotal role Charles played, or the conflict and transformation he undergoes. As a 41-year-old father I understand this all too well.

One thing I certainly didn't remember--or appreciate--on my first read was Bradbury's beautiful, poetic, lyrical prose. I read and reread passages. I thrilled along with the boys. I nodded at truths. I felt the fear and wonder. I'm a writer because of Ray Bradbury, and this re-read reminded me of why. I long to be half the writer he was. Even a quarter.

At its heart, SWTWC is about good and evil, and the way they both rage inside of us. The book was written in 1962, but there's almost nothing that dates it. It's still powerful. Still haunting. Still lyrical. Still scary. And more so now that I, too, am a father, feeling the draw of time on me as I struggle to keep up with my own two boys, and sometimes wishing I had a magic carousel. Just one ride, I promise... ...more

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Mar 06, 2016 Brenda H marked it as tbr · review of another edition

Shelves: 1960s-published

I am approx 50 pages into this book (which is about 25% of the book) and am still having a difficult time getting into it. I hope it gets more interesting.

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Feb 05, 2018 Stuart McMillan rated it it was amazing

Confession - I've read this book 3 times now, once in my early twenties, once in my thirties and now, again in my late forties. My son is 15 now and, between us, we could be mirrors of the key protagonists as we wish for time to move differently for each of us.

If this had been published today and not 1963, it'd be hailed as a YA masterpiece, and reading it in 2018, it is still a brilliant depiction of the journey in time that we all make, willing ourselves adults faster, faster and hitting middl ...more

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Oct 30, 2025 M1 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It starts a little slow…lost in the nostalgia, prose dripping with too much description. But get past that and it gains steam like the carnival train coming to town. The ending is for the ages.

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