#63 in Horror
Something Wicked This Way Comes
- 278
- Pages
- about 5 h
- Reading time
- Film 1983
- On screen
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
“Something Wicked This Way Comes” is dark fantasy told in vivid, exuberant prose, as much about growing up as about being frightened. Two thirteen-year-old friends face a travelling carnival that trades on the secret wishes of their small town, and the real subject is how fear is met. The language is the main pleasure. A short book for readers who want their scares to mean something.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury, and the second book in his Green Town Trilogy. It is about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24. In dealing with the creepy figures of this carnival, the boys learn how to combat fear. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark", who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople's secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the life force of those it enslaves. Mr. Dark's presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, the janitor of the town library, who harbors his own secret fear of growing older because he feels he is too old to be Will's father.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- FilmSomething Wicked This Way ComesIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 553 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 79% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 34 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 7.6 | 519 | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is Something Wicked This Way Comes?
It has 278 pages — shorter than 95% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.5 and 8.0, closest to this book.
