Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Best known for his Martian Chronicles or Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury is an excellent writer – pretty easy to read, yet stretching vocabulary and compelling prose at times.

“The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts.”

He evokes the looming sense of dread quite well, that something wicked this way is coming. He depicts friendship between the two boys beautifully.


Bradbury’s worldview is sad. Pathetic. The basic message seems to be that we make too much of death and evil, and give it its power by our own fears. If we would just smile, sing and dance, evil would vanish in a puff of smoke, and death would be undone. This is literally what happens at the end. It’s a ridiculous counterfeit savior from death, evil and hell.

1 star for content; 3 for writing skill. 2 stars over all.

Good reading for high school boys who can spot inadequate secular solutions to real spiritual problems.



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