Something Wicked This Way Comes
Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury's unparalleled literary classic SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope 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 boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes...and the stuff of nightmare.
Stats for nerds
9recommend
13mentions
11people
2012–2026years
77% recommend23% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- "First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys." - this line always makes me settle back in my chair. 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', Ray Bradbury. It's mysterious and nostalgic and sets the tone for the book right away, like any good first line should.
- I think that’s a fair take. A lot of his stuff is straight fantasy, some is very nearly realism; a lot of time he seems to enjoy ignoring the lines while he colors. Try “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” perhaps; almost zero science to it :)
- You've almost certainly come across them by now, but his novels are fantastic. I started with The Martian Chronicles and then The Illustrated Man, but ended up loving Something Wicked This Way Comes and even Dandelion Wine.
There's something about good fiction and youth that just went together so well -- maybe people who did a lot of, say, swimming in their formative years feel that way about "good swimming" and youth, but I have to believe that good fiction would still trump most everything else for the time period.
- I'm wary of labels such as "must read" - but a couple of books I'm glad I read:
"Dahlgren" by Samuel Delaney (and most everything else I've read by him as well).
"Earthsea" by Ursula LeGuin - and "Powers".
"Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson.
"Holy Fire" by Bruce Sterling (I also enjoyed Islands in the Net, Zenith Angle and Schismatrix).
"Foundation" trilogy + prequel by Isaac Asimov.
"Brave New World", Aldous Huxley.
"Deepness in the Sky" / "Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge.
"Something wicked this way comes" by Ray Bradbury.
And a couple of comics/visual novels:
"V for Vendetta" and "Watchmen" by Alan Moore (David Lloyd/ Tony Weare and Dave Gibbons / John Higgins).
Dave Sims: "Cerebus" (I don't think I've finished this yet, but the first ten volumes or so is.. Something else).
- I don't know if I really even believe in the idea of "must read" books, but here are at least a few I highly recommend. In no particular order.
FICTION
The Mysterious Island - Verne
The Time Machine - Wells
Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
Brave New World - Huxley
Snow Crash - Stephenson
The Shockwave Rider - Brunner
The Fountainhead - Rand
Cryptonomicon - Stephenson
The Foundation trilogy - Asimov
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Bradbury
Strangers - Koontz
After Dark - Murakami
It - King
The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
The Hobbit - Tolkien
Perdido Street Station - Miéville
Permutation City - Egan
Glasshouse - Stross
NON-FICTION
Report from Engine Co 82 - Smith
Godel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter
How the Mind Works - Pinker
The Four Steps to the Epiphany - Blank
Charles Proteus Steinmetz: The Electrical Wizard of Schenectady - Bly
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Levy
Artificial Life - Levy
Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Haffner & Markoff (Note: this book is not without controvery. There is a lot of debate about the veracity of much of the material on Mitnick. However, it is a wildly entertaining read, and an introduction to a number of interesting characters. But I'd suggest following up by reading other related titles, especially regarding Kevin Mitnick)
Ghost in the Wires - Mitnick (Mitnick's autogiography, basically)
Takedown - Shimomura & Markoff
The Fugitive Game - Littman (of the books written about Mitnick, but not by Mitnick, this one has a reputation for being a little more "pro Kevin" whereas a couple of the others are sort of pointedly "anti Kevin" in their bias. Maybe it all balances out in the end if you read them all).
The Cyberthief & the Samurai - Goodell
The Cuckoo's Egg - Stoll
How To Create A Mind - Kurzweil
On Intelligence - Hawkins
Engineering General Intelligence (volumes 1 & 2) - Goertzel
The Hidden Pattern - Goertzel
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity - Wallace
- My personal favorite was "Something Wicked This Way Comes".
