Something Wicked This Way Comes

This is my third book by Ray Bradbury after Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles and moderately my least favorite so far, mainly because the other two books are that good, although I enjoyed Something Wicked This Way Comes immensely in parts.

A book about real friendship and family ties, about facing the odds and trying to get through them as a unit, with the carnival freaks acting as a catalyst for ever present evil in our lives, always needing to be overcome.

Written in a poetic style, Ray Bradbury explains in his afterword how he was approached by Gene Kelly to write a screenplay, maybe explaining why his writing style changed and perhaps justifying the overtly floral delivery that flows in places but also feels loose and indirect in others, as often charming but annoyingly abstract in others.

I was ALMOST ready to drop my rating down to 3 stars because of the garrulous prose - I did not come here for Shakespeare - but 4 stars for now because, well, I often get it wrong.

Published in 1962, this book doesn't feel as strong as earlier work published from 1950 to 1953, including The Illustrated Man (1951) - a reference to one of the main evil carnival freaks covered head to toe with living tattoos as interchangeable images

Classified as fantasy, Something Wicked is more of a coming-of-age bumpy ride on the calliope or carousel than it is horror or sci-fi, but original, heartwarming and worth inspection.