Put ‘Something Wicked’ on your reading list
July 18th 2007 10:29
Image: amazon.com
Hello everyone … I’m back, but only for a short post. I have commitments coming out of my ears and although I haven’t stopped reading (not likely), I am a little strapped for time lately.
Thought I would talk about one of my latest reads – a classic fantasy by Ray Bradbury. Something Wicked This Way Comes tells the dark and forbidding tale of the Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show.
Basically a small fair with side-show freaks, Cooger & Dark’s announces its arrival in Green Town, Illinois just on 3am – the soul’s midnight, with whistles shrieking and organ playing. Two local boys, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway are irresistibly drawn to the carnival, even after they discover its chilling secrets.
For what young 14 year old can resist a ride that, in a few turns, can deliver instant adulthood. Or a world where the turning of years both forward and back is as easy to control as the flick of a switch. There is a price to pay though, and the boys, along with Will’s father soon find themselves in a struggle against an evil that has roamed the world as long as time itself.
You don’t have to be into fantasy to enjoy this book. Bradbury is a master storyteller whose writing can have you literally on the edge of your seat - without any frightening or gory details – just a constant feeling of unease that builds until, well, until you’re running scared along with them … “Witch! Here! He ran leaving patterns, ran feeling crazy fine, wild as a hare who has chewed some secret, delicious, sweetly poisonous root that now gallops him berserk. Knees striking his chin, shoes crushing wet leaves, he soared over a hedge, his hands full of bristly porcupine weapons, fear and joy a tumble of mixed marbles in his mouth.”
Written in the 60’s and with a much more poetic style than today’s thrillers, I have to believe it is writing like this that gave Stephen King and his contemporaries their inspiration. Something Wicked cleverly crosses the two worlds of adults and juveniles, leaving the reader to wonder which is real - a concept I clearly remember in King’s It many years ago.
There is something special about curling up on these cold winter nights with a book that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck … just a little. And for this, Something Wicked is perfect.
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Comment by Nickoftime's Sanity Corner
this is a great book isn't it? So many good tales in it...When I read it when I was a kid I couldn't put it down!
Carried from place to place until I had devoured the entire thing!
LOL
Really good reading there...
Take care,
Nick