Something wicked this way comes By Ray Bradbury
Simon and Schuster, 1962. 317 pages. Science Fiction
Few American novels written this century have endured in th heart and mind as has this one-Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show's smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes -- and the stuff of nightmare.
This is a book that I've read several times over the years, and it never loses its charm. Bradbury writes in a magical, poetical way that is unique and delicious. I love his characters and the deep emotions and thoughts that motivate them in this frightening and compelling story. He blends magic and every day life in a unique way that is visible in his other novels, especially 'Dandelion Wine'. This novel is nostalgic without being too sweet, the perfect read for Halloween.
If you like Something wicked this way comes, you might also like:
By Erin Morgenstern
Anchor Books, 2012. 516 pages. Fiction
Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.
By Neil Gaiman
William Morrow, 2013. 181 pages. Science Fiction
It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed -- within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.
-MGB
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