Once, when I was 19, I stood outside a stage door for an hour, awaiting the arrival of Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury was 70 at the time, and he was scheduled to give a lecture at my school.

I was determined that we were going to talk.

If this sounds stalker-ish to you, let me comfort you. It wasn't stalker-ish. . . it was more. . . Hermione Granger-ish.

I had my best pen and a special notebook, questions written down, and I just couldn't believe it, I was going to meet Ray Bradbury!

After an hour or so of this anticipation and pacing alone before a stage door, a guy walked over from the box office to inform me that no one was going to meet or hear Mr. Bradbury on this night. Apparently, someone had just contacted the school to announce that Bradbury was ill and would not be appearing (take heart, he rallied and went on to live 21 more years).

I was terribly deflated. I thought we were going to meet and talk about his writing process. Maybe grab a cup of coffee afterwards?

It all seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

I had wanted to ask him why he felt he gets lumped as a writer of sci fi and horror when he is so clearly the Father of Fantasy.

And, where, WHERE does he come up with all of these words?

I wanted to tell him that I had forgiven him for weak dialogue and character development, because, well, you know. . . HE CREATED A GENRE. (I'm sure this is when he would have invited me for coffee).

Alas, I did not have my opportunity. And it took me a long time to get over my disappointment.

But, I prevailed. I determined I would continue to honor Mr. Bradbury from afar, by reading and rereading his works, and I've devoured many of them. Something Wicked This Way Comes was a new one for me.

It's fantastic, Mr. Fantasy. You've done it again.

As usual, dialogue and character development just aren't the strong parts of his stories, but Mr. Bradbury was a wordsmith, an inventor, a man of ideas. And, he was a philosopher who possessed an uncanny knack of nailing the human condition:

Oh God, midnight's not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two's not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there's hope, for dawn's just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, 3am! Doctors say the body's at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You're the nearest to dead you'll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you'd slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that's burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It's a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead—And wasn't it true, had he read it somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3am than at any other time?

Interesting story about a creepy carnival that comes to town and how a father, son and his best friend overcome the magic of it. Never underestimate the power of laughter.

El viejo Ray también sabía escribir buen terror, y este libro es una prueba de ello.
Con referencias del Hombre ilustrado, al Sr. Eléctrico (a quien conoció realmente en una feria cuando era niño y quien le dijo "vivirás por siempre") y con un guiño, homenajeado al cuento de Herman Melville llamado "El vendedor de pararrayos", nos deja una novela apasionante.
De esas que hoy son furor entre adolescentes, pero escrita en la década del '50.

Ok, so this review is ONLY for the The Colonial Radio Theater dramatized production that I listened to and not the audiobook or print version of Something Wicked This Way Comes.
This one was another COVID-19 free borrows from Hoopla, and since I'd enjoyed the radio dramatization of War of the Worlds I thought this would be a lot of fun and a good way to introduce myself to the story..
Well, yes and no.



Yes, because the voice actors were very good & I did end up wanting to give the real story a try.
But no - and here's the important thing - because it was very hard to tell what the hell was going on in the thing. I mean, War of the Worlds just translated really well into a radio drama.
This?
Someone yells, Oh no! I'm in a funhouse! then there's wibbly-wobbly music, then the kids say, Golly gee, that's weird! Let's run!, then you hear sound effects of the kids running away.
And they aren't good sound effects. Every time someone ran away, I could almost see a guy with shoes on his hands cartoonishly making them slap down on a board.
I felt like the plot was really hard to follow with any accuracy. Maybe if this weren't my first encounter with this book it would have been different?
However, as I said, this did make me want to read the book-book.



As far as being scary, I'm just not sure yet. Instead of listening to a radio broadcast, it was like watching tv with your eyes closed. <--you know?
So. I got the gist of what was kind of happening -a carnival comes to town & a couple of boys discover that it's got something evil attached to it. But there were a lot of the more intricate things that I assume just blew right past me, and those things might have made this seem far creepier than it did with just some squeaky sound effects.



I did love the father-son storyline. That was just a really well-written dynamic that you don't see every day. I expected Will's dad to play the role of 'dumb adult' or ' angry father' but he was kind of great. He's the dad we all wish we had, you know?
The boys were a different story. Yuck. Super annoying.
I wasn't sure how old Will was in the book, but he sounded like he was about 10. And he was kind of an obnoxious goodie-goodie with all the no swearing, Jim! stuff. BUT his best friend, Jim, was worse. A prime example of what an indulged, assy little boy looks like when allowed to run wild. If he could be a dick to someone, he was a dick to someone. Plus, his obsession with being 25 was weird. Even though I get that it was thrown in there to show that 'kids want to grow up', I felt it went too far and veered into over the top territory.
Ok, I get it. You want to be a man. But even after he knew all the dangers he still (I think) ran right into the arms of Mr. Dark. <--although, I may have missed something important because of the way the story was told.



Bottom line: If you haven't read this story before, DON'T listen to this version of the thing. If you already know what the hell it's about, your mileage may vary with this radio dramatization.

”Have a drink?”
“I don’t need it,” said Halloway. “But someone inside me does.”
“Who?”
The boy I once was, thought Halloway, who runs like the leaves down the sidewalk autumn nights.

***

When Ray Bradbury was a boy of 12, he paid a visit to a carnival in his home town. It was there that he saw a performer, Mr. Electrico, sitting in an electric chair where he was charged with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Bradbury, seated in the front row, watched as the man’s hair stood on end; he held a sword full of electricity, tapped Bradbury on both shoulders and said, “Live, forever!”

The day following this event, Bradbury returned to the carnival where he again saw Mr. Electrico, who was certain that Bradbury was his old friend reincarnated. It was then that Bradbury was introduced to all of the fantastical carnival creatures: the illustrated man, the fat lady, the dwarf and the skeleton, and most importantly, it was then that Bradbury was inspired to write. And what came from that writing was nothing short of pure magic.

***

Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show! I can’t think of a cooler name for a shady, sinister carnival act than that, can you? I can almost taste the cotton candy, smell the bonfire burning and hear the whirling of autumn leaves rustling in the wind.

How f*cking creepy would it be to wake up at three in the morning, see a train coming into town with a calliope playing THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgw_RD...? I have the shivers going up my spine just thinking about it.

Bradbury took me back to a place and time that I had completely forgotten, or maybe it never existed at all, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remember it. I remember the wonder and awe I felt as a child going to the carnival, seeing the exotic performers, longing to follow them and learn their secrets. I remember sneaking peeks into the dusty tents and trailers, imagining what strange and spectacular lives these people must live. Of course the grand menagerie of my imagination was no match to the horror of Bradbury’s band of nefarious freaks.

I have so much I want to say about this book, but the words are hiding from me so I'll leave you with this:

The sun rose yellow as a lemon.
The sky was round and blue.
The birds looped clear water songs in the air.
Will and Jim leaned from their windows.
Nothing had changed.
Except the look in Jim's eyes.
"Last night. . ." said Will. "Did or didn't it happen?”

The first time I read Something Wicked This Way Comes was in my teens and it didn’t have much of an effect on me. The second time I liked it more, but I still didn’t like it as much as I did this time. And I think I know why. This is an October book. An autumn book. Maybe I couldn’t fully appreciate it until autumn—my autumn, that is. The autumn of my life.

For I was in the spring of my life when I first read it, and a thirty-something on my second reading, but I am in middle age now, so I know why a tear slides down Mr. Crosetti’s cheek at the smell of licorice and cotton candy. I know what Miss Foley sees in the mirror maze. I know what Charles Halloway feels at three o’clock in the morning. Now, in my autumn, I hear the call of the calliope.

Strangely enough, what I most remembered from my earlier readings—and remembered fondly—were the scenes of Mr. Halloway in the library. That’s what spoke to me in my spring, in my summer: the old man (Old? He’s only fifty-four!) , “a man happier at night alone in the deep marble vaults, whispering his broom in the drafty corridors” (35). Now, in my autumn, I can finally relate to the boys, the thirteen year olds.

For this is a nostalgic book. Not nostalgia for a time that never was ~ this is nostalgia to a man who grew up in Illinois in the 20s and 30s ~ but nostalgia for a time that never was for me, a woman who grew up in New York in the 60s and 70s. Yet there is something about the atmosphere of the book that speaks to me across generational and geographical lines.

Bradbury’s setting is the fictional Green Town, Illinois circa 1928, but his theme is the perennial one of the battle between good and evil for the human soul. And his thirteen year olds are the embodiment of all the hopes and fears of adolescence. Jim, too eager to be grown. And Will, afraid his friend will leave him behind.

Where once I was drawn to the quiet library haunted by Mr. Holloway, this time I ran through the night, pulse-racing, thirteen year old legs pumping, young lungs relishing the crisp October air, reveling in the strength and bright freedom of youth.

Nostalgia is not for the young. Not for the Wills and Jims of the world. It’s for the boy Charles Halloway once was “who runs like the leaves down the sidewalk autumn nights” (19). It’s for old library janitors, spinster school teachers, and itinerant lightning rod salesmen. It’s for people who lie awake at three o’clock in the morning. It’s for me. And someday it will be for you.

This was a unique reading experience for me.

The writing jumps around haphazardly, repeats, skips, dances around, delivers.

The story, nestled in language, language used so cleverly as to make itself known by refusing the mundane.

Complete sentences few. Commas, so many commas, commas where you want semi-colons, as though the sentences are a runaway train and there's no time for semi-colons, only commas, it's the only pause that can be afforded.

The limited dialogue brings the story back to reality, and injects fear into it by creating a very real presence for the menace that is Mr Dark and his ominous carnival of terrors.

Two boys, Will and Jim, are caught up, haunted, chased by these bizarre characters that we never really understand yet absolutely appreciate.

The terror is subtle, tangled in description, insinuation, allusion, repetition. Personification. Similes and symbols that somehow still manage to come together and express the horror of the situation, causing some very real chills.

It was so beautifully written.

I thought I'd be lost by the language but here I am, unable to get its voice out of my head. Borrowing its patterns and thinking about the individual trees that created this forest of nightmares.

Meanwhile, this is one hella creepy story.

I'll be turning this one over in my head for a little while, I think. So brilliantly written, and so much better than I was expecting. The story is great but the true genius here is the way the story is told.

Highly recommend.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: The thrills and terrors of early adulthood (Revised after BookChat at Fantasy Literature and hearing audiobook version):

I didn’t read Ray Bradbury until age 40, so in my critical early years I missed out on his poetic, image-rich, melancholic prose and themes in books like The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, Fahrenheit 451, and his short stories. Though I can’t go back in time to rectify this, I am glad I finally took time to explore his world.

I’m sure if I had read him back when I was the age of his protagonists Jim Nightshade or Will Halloway, I would have loved his work immediately. But alas, I'm no longer a bright-eyed teen, my taste in books runs more to Neal Stephenson, China Mieville, Philip K. Dick, and George R.R. Martin, and my favorite TV shows include The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones. I'm very much a product of the conflicted and complex world we live in, and seeing my 13-year old daughter growing up in the concrete jungle of Tokyo, constantly connected to friends with her smartphone and text messages, the wistful world of Bradbury’s innocent Midwestern teens feels so divorced from today's world as to seem totally irrelevant at first glance.

And yet I decided to give Bradbury another try. I discovered I could get his books (including this one) for just $3.50 on Audible since I had the Kindle editions. I hadn’t really enjoyed them last year, but I knew I must be missing something considering his legendary status. And when I started listening to The Martian Chronicles narrated by Scott Brick, I realized what had been wrong. Bradbury’s poetic prose DEMANDS to be read aloud, and it comes to life with the right narrator. His style of storytelling makes you feel like a kid curled up next to the fireplace in winter listening to your grandfather telling you stories of his life. In particular, Tim Robbins does a fantastic job with Fahrenheit 451, and Christian Rummel gives an impressive performance with all the characters in Something Wicked, including the innocence of Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade on the verge of becoming young men, the bittersweet wisdom of the father Charles Halloway, and the sinister hiss of the evil Mr. Dark.

The story is simple but filled with vivid and memorable scenes. Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade are two 13-year old friends growing up in rural Green Town, Illinois, the same setting for Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, and modeled after his own upbringing in Waukegan, Illinois. One night a mysterious carnival called Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show comes to town in late October, well past the usual season. The boys are drawn to it, and witness a frightening carousel that goes backwards while playing wild calliope music, reducing Mr. Cooger from an adult to a 12-year old boy. This metaphor for life and the desire to return to youth (or to get older quick, as Jim is drawn to it) is central to the story, and a very adroit image indeed.

The two boys go through a number of adventures as they are being hunted by Mr. Dark and his minions, all the while not being believed by the adults of the town. Will then turns to his father Charles Halloway for aid. Initially he is skeptical, and there is a very touching late-night father-son talk in which they clumsily try to bridge their gap in age and life experiences. Eventually, Charles overcomes years of disillusionment and solitude to confront the sinister Mr. Dark and become a hero for his young son.

There are amazingly described scenes throughout the book, particularly the 3am arrival of the carnival, Will and Jim’s first glimpses of the carousel’s powers, Miss Foley getting lost in the house of mirrors, the nighttime hunt of the boys by the Dust Witch in a balloon, Charles’ confrontation with Mr. Dark during a parade to hide the boys hiding directly below, a long expository interlude in the library where Charles explains his theories on how the carnival got its start as a parasitical evil force that feeds on fear and despair, the subsequent confrontation with Mr. Dark and the Dust Witch in the library, and the final battle against Mr. Dark and his crew of carnival freaks at the carnival.

The themes of Something Wicked are timeless. For the young boys, the adult world is both enticing and terrifying, filled with dark and sinister forces. At the same time, the older Charles Halloway sees things from the opposite perspective, wishing for his lost youth and the wasted middle years of his life, and the pain of not knowing how to connect with his son. The carnival is also a powerful image of the temptations of dark powers and how they feed on the fears and vanities of people. Thus when Charles rises to the occasion to battle these powers, it is a titanic struggle between good and evil that is carried out in a very understated way compared to the pyrotechnics of today’s books and movies.

The description language of Bradbury is quite colorful, sometimes perhaps too much, but never pedestrian. When I read it first I found it a bit overwrought and purple, but somehow hearing it narrated it really let it sink into my mind’s eye.
Here's a sample to give you a taste:

"Mr. Dark came carrying his panoply of friends, his jewel- case assortment of calligraphical reptiles which lay sunning themselves at midnight on his flesh. With him strode the stitch- inked Tyrannosaurus rex, which lent to his haunches a machined and ancient wellspring mineral- oil glide. As the thunder lizard strode, all glass- bead pomp, so strode Mr. Dark, armored with vile lightning scribbles of carnivores and sheep blasted by that thunder and arun before storms of juggernaut flesh. It was the pterodactyl kite and scythe which raised his arms almost to fly the marbled vaults. And with the inked and stencilled flashburnt shapes of pistoned or bladed doom came his usual crowd of hangers- on, spectators gripped to each limb, seated on shoulder blades, peering from his jungled chest, hung upside down in microscopic millions in his armpit vaults screaming bat- screams for encounters, ready for the hunt and if need be the kill. Like a black tidal wave upon a bleak shore, a dark tumult infilled with phosphorescent beauties and badly spoiled dreams, Mr. Dark sounded and hissed his feet, his legs, his body, his sharp face forward."

In the end I found myself carried away by the power of Bradbury’s writing and also the poignancy of the story of Will and Jim on the cusp of manhood, while Will’s father Charles struggles to come to grips with life at the other end of experience. As a father of a teen, I suddenly realized how much I could empathize with Charles, even more so than Will and Jim. It is a story that any parent can appreciate, or anyone who has lived through life’s bittersweet experiences but still thinks back fondly of more innocent times.

4.5 stars.

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" is a coming of age piece that uses the backdrop of a carnival to measure one's perception of youth and the handling of age. In this novel, kids want to be adults, but even as adults come challenges and challenges involving their self-consciousness. Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway are best friends. Jim is a go-getter, while Will is a bit more insecure. They have such a strong friendship and a loyalty to each other that is perfectly described on page 18:

"So there they go, Jim running slower to stay with Will, Will running faster to stay with Jim, Jim breaking two windows in a haunted house because Will's along, Will breaking one window instead of none, because Jim's watching. God, how we get out fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other."

Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Show has various attractions from carousels that cause you to age and regress to mirror mazes that depict you in the way you see yourself. Mr. Cooger and Mr. Dark are preying on the attendees in order to spread their horror among them, but in a way that puts them at their mercy, which can be defeated by one's realization and ability to make due with the horrors that they come across. Will's father, Charles, who is 40 years older, is the key parental figure and such a magnificent character. He loves to read, is surrounded by books, and works as a librarian. He also aged with feelings of self-doubt, resulting in his marriage and having Will later in life.

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" has been cited as a direct inspiration to Stephen King's "IT" and the parallels can be made. These predators are craving the insecurities or innocence of the individual, though in "IT," the predator is a clown rather than a carnival operator and the team of "carnies." The lesson, though, is that what we fear as children and even as adults should not consume us in a way that causes lifelong, ongoing damage.

This book is one of Bradbury's greatest efforts as far as his trek into horror fiction is concerned and it does a great job melding the supernatural with what is real. I was fascinated by this piece. I did enjoy "Fahrenheit 451" the most and "The Martian Chronicles" second most, but I still enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend that others pick it up, especially if they are into good quality horror fiction. This would be a book that I would highly consider rereading again, because I have benefited from rereading the two Bradbury books that I mentioned. There is so much to explore with Bradbury's writing, and this is definitely one such piece.

Full Video Review Here: https://youtu.be/8SOSrH7mUNg

Imagine a Stephen King Castle Rock story written by one of the most talented authors of the last 100 years and Something Wicked This Way Comes is what you'll get. It's easy to see how much this story influenced King by the similarities between Castle Rock and Green Town, as well as the coming of age story under supernatural and horrifying circumstances.

What Bradbury is able to write in a horrific scene and make it both scary and beautiful at the same time is a transcendent talent. I've always compared his style to Thomas Wolfe and it is on full display with his sweeping prose in this dark, twisted tale.

Speaking of dark, Mr. Dark is one of the best horror villains of all time and haunted my dreams as a kid. But it's different reading it as an adult with young children. As a child I was scared of Mr. Dark. But as a parent I relate more to Charles wanting to protect his child. There are so many thematic layers to this wonderful tale that will live on forever. Immaculate horror story.

"Is...is it...Death?"
"The carnival?" The old man lit his pipe, blew smoke, seriously studied the patterns. "No. But I think it uses Death as a threat. Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness."

Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I'll refer to as SWTWC for the rest of this review, is the second of three full length novels set in Bradbury's fictional town of Green Town, Illinois, which he based on his childhood town of Waukegan, Illinois. The other two books are Dandelion Wine and Farewell Summer and both are worth reading, in my opinion, though the reader should be aware that those two have a very different tone than SWTWC.

The other two books are heavily nostalgic for the experience of childhood, what it feels like to be a kid growing up, living life to the fullest and having fun, sneakers and bubble gum and summer evenings down by the ravine, the smell of the sweet grass and hanging out with your friends...that sort of thing. SWTWC is a very different book, darker in atmosphere, and far lighter on nostalgia, though it does similarly present a coming-of-age story like the other two books.

SWTWC tells the story of an ominous carnival coming to Green Town in October, well after the last carnival has usually come and gone. The carnival of freaks and attractions is run by a Mr. Dark, also known as The Illustrated Man, which is the title of another apparently very good Ray Bradbury short story collection I've yet to read, featuring the same character. The story focuses on two boys, best friends named Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, who live right next door to each other and sooner or later get caught up in the carnival in a bad way.

The main nostalgia in this book comes from Will and Jim's friendship, and was very well done, exploring what it means to be a kid growing up, having a best friend that you know will someday leave town, or knowing you'll maybe leave town yourself, and that you have a finite amount of years left together and so try to enjoy your friendship to its fullest while you still can.

The thing I really loved about this book was Will's father, Charles Halloway. He's easily the best character in the book, and is extremely well-crafted and memorable. He had Will late in life, and finds himself fifty-four years old with a fourteen-year-old son. Finding himself in this uncommon scenario, he ends up struggling with fatherhood, doubting himself and thinking he is too old to be Will's father. The novel, in a fascinating twist, ends up being more of a coming-of-age story for Charles, as he finally comes to grips with being a father and embraces it, rather than being a coming-of-age story for either Will or Jim. In a book containing two young boys as protagonists, I found this to be a refreshing, unexpected, and wildly imaginative turn of events.

For me, there was very little to dislike here. The characters were great, the story is ominous and, though a little slow at the start, very good, the villain is creepy, and the writing is absolutely beautiful and possibly the best I've seen by Bradbury so far. I only have two minor complaints. At one point, Charles talks for a long time with Will and Jim in a scene at the town library. For me, it wasn't really talking though, because it was basically just Charles doing a large info dump at Will and Jim. They barely said a word, and it felt more like Charles just ranting for pages on end. So I didn't like that so much; it came across as a little self-absorbed on Charles' part.

The other thing I didn't like was how excessively and obviously Bradbury tried to tell the reader that Jim is drawn toward "the dark side" and is tempted by the evil of the carnival. Not only is his last name Nightshade, but there were soooo many scenes where Jim was trying to sneak off to the carnival, or to ride the evil merry-go-round/carousel, or to go into the ominous mirror maze, or etc., with Will trying to stop or save him, that it got a bit tiring. It was overdone, in my opinion. I get why Bradbury was doing it, given how the story played out, but I thought it was a little much.

Overall, this is one of the better Bradbury books I've read so far, and I'm comfortable saying it's the best written of the ones I've read. Great characters, great story, great creepy atmosphere, and really just a great and unorthodox coming-of-age story. I still like The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine better than this one, but this is near the top for me of the Bradbury works I've read thus far.

4.5 stars

Highly recommended!

An atmospheric, classic tale mixing a small town America setting, a coming-of-age story and a chilling horror. What's not to like when one of the main characters is a librarian and a key suspense scene takes place in a library? Superbly written, evoking both a simpler time, childhood fears and scary chills.