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| Something Wicked This Way Comes | 
 enlarge | Author: Ray Bradbury
Publisher: Avon
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
New (49) Used (65) Collectible (9) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  208 reviews
Sales Rank: 154301
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0380729407
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780380729401
ASIN: 0380729407
Publication Date: March 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Something Wicked November 30, 2008
I have read this book before but wanted a new copy. The book came quickly and was as advertised. This book is a quick read and is enjoyable. I recomend it to any one who likes fanasty/science fiction. Also gives an idea of what a small town in the midwest was like in the 1920s.
Beautiful and Dark November 27, 2008
"Something Wicked This Way Comes" is a dark tale about weakness in the face of temptation. A tale that is a moving commentary on youth and relationships, as well as being unsettling when it depicts how regrets affect our attitudes and actions in maturity.
The book centers on two boys moving into adolescence, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, best friends born two minutes apart. When Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show rolls into town with its carnival attractions, the boys natural curiosity for adventure lead them to discover the sinister intentions of the show. The boys, as different as light and dark but complimentary to each other, must work to save the community (and themselves). To stop Mr. Dark they must fight their own desires and growing impulses.
Ray Bradbury's writing style is lyrical and poetic which takes a few pages to get accustomed to, but ultimately enhances a book that if written in a more direct style would feel slightly empty. The tone is dark and brooding in a beautiful way that carries the novel to heights above where it should be for the story alone. Although the story has wonderful coming of age yearnings, mystical and dark action and a lovely father and son awakening, the theme of loving yourself and accepting your fears is slightly bland. It is Bradbury's lyrical writing that creates an emotion on the page that leaves the reader mesmerized.
There is much to enjoy with this book. Although the book is developed around the two boys and their relationship, I found myself routing for Will's father to shed his fears of being irrelevant and not miss the opportunity to show his son that it is his maturity that will be needed to beat back Cooger and Dark. I also loved some of the really spooky possibilities of how Cooger and Dark's carrousel could create situations where innocence of youth may not be so innocent.
A good book with some very beautiful writing and scenes, but overall it seems slightly incomplete with many themes just touched upon leaving the reader wanting more.
 If Only the Writing had been Better... November 19, 2008
When I heard that my book club had chosen this book for our October reading with the idea of reading a creepy, Halloween-esc story, I was thrilled. I later found out that Something Wicked This Way Comes is often considered a genre book for horror. Even better. On top of all that, Ray Bradbury is a well-known author whose works are held in high regard. I was eager to dive into the book and went in with high expectations.
I was severely disappointed.
The overall idea of the book is really quite intriguing. A creepy carnival that feeds off of its customer's inner fears and insecurities mysteriously rolls into town before Halloween. Two boys know something's not right and set out to foil the evil that has invaded their small town. There's a lot of potential for an amazing story.
However, the writing really ruined it.
The style and overall writing struck me as overly poetic, clunky, and self-indulgent. Creating a captivating, bone-chilling setting is an essential for making a good horror. However, metaphors heaped on top of analogies do not a good setting description make. There was often so much description going on that I lost track of what exactly was going on plot-wise. It always seemed like there was more happening that there actually was. There were also a lot of sentences that contained prose like "He saw. He didn't see. He thought. He didn't think. He heard. He didn't hear." At first, such prose was interesting and new. But it got really old, really fast. I respect Ray Bradbury as an author and I respect that all authors have their own, individual writing styles. However, the writing style really killed this book.
The first fifty pages or so were actually quite well done. The scene settings were captivating and the way Bradbury set the characters of the two boys up was masterful. Then, the whole thing went downhill for the next 150 pages or so. The boys became really bland and hard to relate to and the writing got so clunky and confusing that it was difficult to figure out what was going on plot-wise. The last 50 pages picked back up and ended the book solidly enough with a satisfying conclusion. It was just a matter of slogging through the middle to get there.
It really is a pity that the writing style ruined the book as much as it did because the idea behind it is truly intriguing and interesting. I haven't read a lot of Ray Bradbury's works, but I hope this is one of his worst and that his other works are far better.
Something Wicked This Way Comes November 3, 2008
I was really excited to receive this cd of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. But I found the sound erratic and the acting and dialog stiff. Way too bad, since I love this story.
 Did seeing the movie first smear my objectivity? August 22, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ray Bradbury'
s book was something that I've wanted to read for quite some time. Unfortunately, I had already seen the film so I had a plot in mind as well as a mood. Bradbury as always strings metaphores together like we do popcorn on the Christmas tree. It's his main setup for atmosphere and that is the books great strength. Unfortunately for me, the characters of Will, Jim and Will's Dad are flat, underdeveloped and dull. Without a back story, I really don't have a sense of caring for the characters and as hard as I tried that didn't change. This was typical of Dickens at times. He created characters and then threw them into the story for development. I never found this technique particularly inviting for me.
The story is simple enough -- a carnival comes to town creating strange and bizarre situations that invite temptation. Jim wants to be older -- but we aren't given a good enough reason why. Will's Dad wants to be younger and the idea feels more universal than centered on the character in question and it falls short. The carnival can do this of course but at a price. That alone feels as rundown an idea as I've ever read. Everyone has that statement. The ending feels more of a fable than anything else and perhaps that's what Ray wanted out of the story. Perhaps he would have put 'once upon a time' and 'happily ever after' were it a different time.
The message -- don't fall into temptation and don't let misery eat away your soul. I don't know, the book has great mood and atmosphere but had the same feel for me as 'Tale of Two Cities' -- I couldn't want to finish it and move on to something else.
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