Literary Significance
Critics have praised Something Wicked This Way Comes as a classic of fantasy and horror, noting its masterful blending of both genres and Bradbury's unusual and mesmerizing prose. The most referenced characteristic of the novel's plot is its unusual subtlety and realism for its genres. The magazine Science Fiction Weekly published a review of the novel; an excerpt of it follows:
| “ | A dark fantasy set in a small town, its people are brought to life so expertly readers feel very much like citizens ... even when their adopted hometown is menaced by outside forces against which it is helpless. Bradbury's prose is musical and hypnotic, fully engaging the senses and emotions. This is a book, once opened, that truly makes the real world disappear. | ” |
Science Fiction Crowsnest, another science fiction magazine reviewed it with high praise, referring to it as a "Masterwork" with "a suitably fantastic and scary plot around colourful description...with hidden meanings, mysteries and symbols adding to the layers of tension."
The Denver Rocky Mountain News said in 1999, "If rational beings had created the 100 best books of the century list, this one would surely have been on it."
Something Wicked has influenced several fantasy and horror authors, the most prominent being Neil Gaiman and Stephen King. Gaiman paid eloquent tribute to Bradbury's influence on him and many others in The Guardian in 2012, after Bradbury's death. Gaiman's novel American Gods can be read as a tribute to and attempt to surpass many of the "dark carnival" themes in Bradbury's work. The motif of ordinary people up against sinister, supernatural forces appears in many of King's works, including It and Dreamcatcher. King also discusses the Bradbury novel quite extensively in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre.
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