Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)

Author: Ray Bradbury | Page Count: 272

'He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life.'

Green Town, Illinois, a quiet Midwestern town, is home to best friends William Halloway and Jim Nightshade, both aged thirteen; one was born as the day ended, the other born as the day begins. They've much in common but also reflect each other, thriving on the mirror image differences. You'll recognise them. They're you and me. They're everyone that ever lived or ever will. Tapping into the archetypal and imbuing it with magic is one of Bradbury's many talents. His currency is emotion and he spends it without reservation.

SWtWC is a timeless study of childhood and loss of innocence, wrapped up in a dark fantasy that will excite or terrify depending on the age of the reader.

In truth, the story is a vehicle for the subtext to cling to. Characters are invaded and appear to paradoxically invite the things that terrify them the most. If you're young you'll identify with the boys and share their sense of adventure. If you're an adult, if you understand the duality of change and the pangs of nostalgia, you'll discover a truer, more poignant aspect. The further removed you are from the boys' age the more poignant that subtext will feel and its affect on you will become intimately personal because optimism is a fragile thing.

It's Bradbury at max level. It's much darker than his other works and he doesn't try to hide it. The wonderfully named Mr. Dark is painted in shadow colours for a reason. His prose style, that word association game he plays, is evocative of so many things all at once that it left me dizzy with joy. There's a lengthy scene in a library that had me literally wide-eyed with awe.

The ending is a little cheesy but doesn't diminish the journey, the pace of which is your own heartbeat. Novels are rarely this close to perfection.

5 spins on the creepy carousel out of 5

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Author: Philip K. Dick | Page Count: 210

"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity."

I like Dick. I can go to the library and ask the woman at the counter if she likes Dick, and if she'd like to come home with me and see my big Dick collection. Being a Dick-Head is a source of endless in-jokes with other Dick-Heads.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set on Earth, an Earth that is mostly abandoned and almost totally poisoned. The hardy stragglers that haven't left the planet are in danger of being unable to leave the planet. Rick Deckard is one such person. He's a bounty hunter, policing Androids (aka Andys) that have gone rogue. A group of Nexus 6 Andys have come to Earth and it's Rick's job to take them out, which means a nice big fat paycheque for his wallet. Along the way he's forced to make some tough decisions while dealing with his own neuroses.

As with most of Dick's books, there's a fundamental duality ticking away like clockwork under the surface. Even the title of the book has a double meaning; I won't say what it is, because it's up to the reader to discover it. His prose style can be off-putting to people not already familiar with the conventions of the genre; and it's certainly not something that I think a casual reader will be able to easily engage with. At times it's cold and sterile, but it's also thought-provoking, full of deep introspection and emotional reasoning, particularity in the latter half.

4 Dick-Heads aren't chickenheads out of 5