Something Wicked This Way Comes

Name: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brand: Simon & Schuster Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Ray Bradbury
ISBN: 9781668133880

Author: Ray Bradbury

Narrator: Paul Giamatti

Unabridged: 8 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Published: 09/30/2025

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction

Synopsis

One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now in a new recording narrated by Paul Giamatti!

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. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. 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 nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.

About Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was the author of more than three dozen books, including Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, as well as hundreds of short stories. He wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV, including the screenplay for John Huston’s Moby Dick and the Emmy Award–winning teleplay The Halloween Tree, and adapted for television sixty-five of his stories for The Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, and numerous other honors.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on September 19, 2024

I read this when I was an insanely romantic teenager and since then the cruel world has beaten all that nonsense out of my brain with bars of iron and wires of barb, and left me bleeding and barfing in a vile ditch, so I should probably not have plucked my old Corgi paperback of Something Wicked out......more

Goodreads review by Brooke on June 12, 2007

Leveling any complaints against Bradbury seems like a literary crime, but I'm afraid I didn't enjoy Something Wicked as much I feel like I should have. The plot was really interesting, and right up my alley - evil carnival comes to town and preys on the unsuspecting citizens. The execution, however,......more

Goodreads review by Vit on May 04, 2025

The story is a pure dark poetry. It’s October… A month of Halloween… A month of ghostly beings… A month of mysterious expectations… The seller of lightning-rods arrived just ahead of the storm. He came along the street of Green Town, Illinois, in the late cloudy October day, sneaking glances over his......more

Goodreads review by Eric on August 05, 2025

I had an incredibly hard time reading this book, especially considering it's a 300-page linear story about an evil circus coming to a small town. I think it's because — unlike Fahrenheit 451 — Bradbury overwrote this book to the point of it being dense poetry rather than prose. The dialogue is spars......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on March 03, 2017

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. MacBeth Act 4, Scene 1 This book is straight-forward good vs. evil – and is quite terrifying at points! It goes beyond fantasy and mysticism and straight to the terrifying possibilities from the darkest reaches. This would be a great s......more

Quotes

"Combining his unpretentious style with the rhythms and tones of 1940s radio, actor Paul Giamatti smoothly creates the uniquely American feel of Ray Bradbury’s 1962 classic dark fantasy. It’s a week before Halloween, ominous clouds have gathered, and The Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to town. Only Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, two 13-year-old best friends, seem to notice that the carnival rides, mirror maze, and magical carousel might mean big trouble for the good citizens of Green Town, Illinois. The tension in Giamatti’s voice appropriately heightens as the boys take on the awful specters of the Illustrated Man, the Skeleton Man, and Mr. Electrico. A thunderous swirling concoction of boyhood adventure, nostalgia, and modern horror delivered by a consummate actor."