Based on the short story "Nightmare Carousel" (1962), Something Wicked This Way Comes has been enormously popular, but has been widely criticized for the self-indulgence of its language and the weakness of its plot structure.

The novel focuses in part on the nostalgia for midwestern small-town childhood that Bradbury treated in his earlier non-fantasy novel Dandelion Wine. It adds, however, a strong focus on the theme of maturation and explores some of the darkest fantasies of childhood.

More than any other writer of fantasy and science fiction, Bradbury has remained in close touch with his own childhood. The children who appear in "Homecoming," "The Veldt" (both appear in The Stories of Ray Bradbury, 1980), Dandelion Wine, and innumerable other Bradbury stories are invariably well drawn, and Jim and Will of Something Wicked This Way Comes are no exception. Though imbued with some of the nostalgia that is characteristic...