Something Wicked This Way Comes (1970) (Photo credit: admiral.ironbombs)
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (1962)
And, Will thought, here comes the carnival, Death like a rattle in one hand, Life like candy in the other; shake one to scare you, offer one to make your mouth water. Here comes the side show, both hands full!
One-sentence summary: A carnival led by the mysterious Mr. Dark comes to town, enticing two boys with the promise of fulfilling their secret fantasies and ensnaring them in a battle between good and evil.
My rating: 
When read: I’ve read this at least twice. Probably the first time was in grade school and the second time was in high school.
Why read: As a fan of Ray Bradbury, this was a must-read.
Impressions: I suspect that Something Wicked is one of those books that I might love more as a child than as an adult, which is why I probably haven’t reread it lately. For me, this was a highly atmospheric book that encapsulated at an early age many of the things I would come to love best in fiction: a mysterious, otherworldly milieu; a sense of the surreal and nightmarish; the feeling that we have pulled back the curtain on reality and glimpsed what is behind it; and the idea that ordinary people can be caught up in extraordinary events and become extraordinary themselves.
Current status: I don’t own it but I would like to buy a nice copy and reread it at some point.
Fun facts:
- The title is from Macbeth: ”By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this way comes.”
- The novel is set in the fictional Green Town, Illinois, along with Bradbury’s other books Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer and Summer Morning, Summer Night.
If you liked this, you might also like:
- The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
- The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- Needful Things by Stephen King
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
