Great book.

Everything I hoped it would be! I've been a Bradbury fan since my elementary school teacher gave me a copy of The Halloween Tree in 1977. I've read The October Country several times (which contains many, but not all of the stories in Dark Carnival) but I've wanted an affordable copy of Dark Carnival ever since I learned of its existence. I wasn't disappointed. If you are on the fence about buying it because you have The October Country, I would highly recommend going for it and buying this if you are any kind of Bradbury fan. For that matter, I would recommend it if you've never read Bradbury before, but would like an exquisitely written atmospheric collection of short stories that represent some of the best writing from the pulp era.

Just another Great read by Ray Bradbury. I like the darkness of the read like "Something Wicked This Way Comes". This book is an all-out enjoyable ride.

Most of these stories appear in THE OCTOBER COUNTRY, but, for the Bradbury collector, this doesn’t matter. What matters is this is where the emergence and appreciation of Bradbury began.

It has been a while since I read Ray Bradbury.

I had read "The October Country" years ago, and several of the stories here are in that book, but there are other "rougher" stories that Bradbury didn't include in "October Country."

Anyway, "Dark Carnival" is a delight. It opens with "Homecoming," which really hit me like a sledgehammer, even if I had read it years ago. Some of the stories here are clearly earlier versions of stories I remember. "The Scythe" for instance seemed more World War II specific than I remember it being. (That could be a trick of memory, of course.) "Jack in the Box," "Let's Play Poison," and "The Man Upstairs" were all terrific reads.

"Dark Carnival" is a fine place to get reacquainted with Ray Bradbury

I have waited for a release of this book, Dark Carnival, after reading Ray Bradbury for over 60 years. Never mind the release over 20 years ago. That printing soon became rare and the cost soared into the hundreds of dollars. This 2024 edition by Harper Collins is bare bones. No lengthy prefaces or editorials- It’s just the early 27 short stories of Ray, the way I have enjoyed his other books. There are no rocket ships, poems or mysteries. These very first writings, mostly deal with the macabre. What a great tribute this reprint is, long after the passing of Ray Bradbury.

As the title implies, basically a dark fantasy and horror collection, of consistently decent quality, the highlight being The Small Assassin. A 3.43 average for this book.

Dark Carnival : The Homecoming - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : Skeleton - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Jar - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Lake - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Tombstone - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Smiling People - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Emissary - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Traveller - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Small A55a55in - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Crowd - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Handler - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : Let's Play 'Poison' - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : Uncle Einar - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Wind - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Night - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : There Was an Old Woman - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Dead Man - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Man Upstairs - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : Cistern - Ray Bradbury

Dark Carnival : The Next in Line - Ray Bradbury

I want to feel the wind beneath my wings. Or I'll cry.

3.5 out of 5

Bone chart discovery.

3.5 out of 5

Known freak contents.

3.5 out of 5

Water girl memory.

3 out of 5

"I mean that I won't sleep in no room with no corpse."

3.5 out of 5

Cutthroat dinner.

3.5 out of 5

Dog and death.

3.5 out of 5

Telepathic head help.

3.5 out of 5

Rugrat's gonna get me, maybe I should get it first?

4 out of 5

Accident cycle.

3.5 out of 5

Undertaking revenge.

3.5 out of 5

Defenestrating death kids.

3.5 out of 5

Flying drying zapped.

3.5 out of 5

Unexpected airy visitor.

3.5 out of 5

Not dead dad.

3.5 out of 5

Aunty Death fighter.

3 out of 5

Alive, maybe not, but definitely smelly.

3 out of 5

Chicken choppin' granny stropper monster stopper.

3.5 out of 5

Well dead.

3.5 out of 5

Don't mind the mummies, sleepy girl.

3.5 out of 5

Well dead.

3 out of 5

Don't mind the mummies, sleepy girl.

3.5 out of 5

Excellent Bradbury,!

I have found these to be good stories but not as good as his later works. I did very much enjoy this earlier version of The Emissary though the later version which was without names was better. Still, a very good read.

Dark Carnival by Ray Bradbury. Admit one for imagination and total macabre. I adore this book's dark intonations and sinister vibrations; you will be lost and caught like a spider within its pages. I have read almost everything Ray Bradbury has written during my lifetime, with one or two exceptions. This collection of tales of creeping horror hallmarks Bradbury's career that veers into his future masterworks, which evolved into his other classics. It has an unsettling tone to this anthology - as if you are about to jump out of your skin. Let the tent poles unfurl and enter.

I have never read some of these short stories, but I am familiar with many of them.

A few of my favourites include The Homecoming, where we are introduced to Cecy Elliot, the original Wednesday Adams. Where Cecy and Wednesday differ, Cecy is a telepath and a wandering Witch. Ray and Charles Adams, the creator of his eponymous Adams Family, were about to collaborate on a book project. This union, unfortunately, didn't come to be, as Adams passed away. Wednesday is portrayed nowadays as a moody teenage gothic persona. However, Cecy takes it to another sinister level in this, her first appearance. I would dearly love to see a movie made or a series of Bradbury's later work that features the whole Elliot clan, "From The Dust Returns”.

Next, The Emissary. Martin is a boy around the age of eleven and is quite ill and bedbound. His dog, Torry, is a labrador retriever. Torry is a good dog whenever he brings visitors to Martin's bedside. The dog goes astray one day and disappears. Martin's mom comes to his bedside to tell him a friendly neighbour has died. But Torry is a bad dog because he digs up bones in the graveyard. Martin is overjoyed whenever the dog returns home with another visitor, a dreadful, ghastly one …

The Jar is just a perfect horror story. "It was just one of those things they keep in a jar in the tent of a sideshow on the outskirts of a little, drowsy town."

Charlie is a hick from the bayou who becomes enthralled with the contents of the Jar and buys it from the Carny proprietor. He brings it to Wilder's Hollow, where he ekes out a living on the edge of a swampland. He invites his neighbours to guess what is contained within its mysterious contents. His wife, Theady, is sceptical and jealous of the thing, along with another neighbour, Tom Carmody and together they conspire against Charlie.

But Charlie has plans of his own. Theady gets her comeuppance when Charlie fixes his problems by unscrewing The Jar ...

Now, we turn our attention to The Scythe. Drew Erickson is a dirt farmer who has fallen on the hardest of times. This story is straight out of the twilight zone. His family finds refuge in an old, dusty, creaking, abandoned farmhouse out by the boondocks. The house is surrounded by wheatfields from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye can see. They search the house, finding food, water and shelter.

Upstairs, Drew discovers an old man. Who appears to be not long dead lying on a bed, in his funeral attire. A Scythe hangs perched high on a wall beside him. In the ancient hands, there is a golden, ripened blade of wheat. On the pillow opposite, the man's last will and testimony.

The deceased man's name is John Buhr. Written on the parchment is a deed bequeathing the land, the farmlands to the new occupants - and the Scythe. There are words inscribed on the gleaming blade ... ''Who he wields me - wields the world."

The wheatfield is strange. When Drew attends the fields with his Scythe the foison grows and ripens weirdly and rapidly, first seedlings, then vast clusters, then it ripens.

The grain needed to be cut. Drew knew it instinctively. What he didn't fathom was why. He avoids some patches of wheat, knowing somehow they are different from the rest.

Then, the sudden realisation falls when the farmhouse burns down, his family are the wheat to be harvested!

Stephen King mentions this story in his works. And Alan Moore in V - for Vendetta, where Evie and V discuss the story in the rose garden.

All in all, this is a magnificent collection. Well worth the entrance ticket. Price, one soul. Ray Bradbury has captured mine - now and forever.

Jonathan Fisher author.

The package arrived well protected, however the cover of the book has many damages.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) is generally remembered as a writer of science fiction, but was a prolific author who wrote in multiple genres, including fantasy, horror and mystery. He also wrote poetry, plays and screenplays for television. He was blessed with a very strong imagination and he had a deep understanding of human psychology.

‘Dark Carnival’, Bradbury’s first story collection, was published in 1947 – although many of the stories contained in this book had been already published in popular magazines of the day. Many of these stories were also included in anthologies in later years. These stories belong to the genre of horror, though there are frequent humorous episodes.

‘The Homecoming’ introduces us to the teenaged Timothy, who is miserable because he is the only human in a family of vampires! This story contains a wonderful metaphor: “Brothers came and went like trains in a station, talking and arguing.” Timothy and his weird extended family reappear in several stories in this collection.

There are many stories in this collection which do not rely on the supernatural element, for instance, ‘The Tombstone’, in which a young couple check into a room in a small town to find a marble tombstone lying inside. The landlord explains that it belongs to the previous occupant of the room and reassures them by saying is no grave beneath it!

Another memorable story is ‘The Crowd’ in which the protagonist notices that certain individuals are always present in the crowds that gather whenever road accidents take place in his city. This story contains eloquent descriptions of crowd behaviour: “Where the crowd came from he didn’t know. He struggled to remain aware and then the crowd faces hemmed in upon him, hung over him like the large glowing leaves of down-bent trees. They were a ring of shifting, compressing, changing faces over him, looking down, looking down, reading the time of his life or death by his face, making his face into a moon-dial…”

“How talented was death” is a striking quote from ‘The Next in Line’ the very last story in this book, in which a middle-aged American couple encounter a collection of mummies in an underground chamber in a graveyard in a small Mexican town.

Despite being a science fiction writer, Bradbury was not comfortable with technology; he never learnt to drive a car and always chose to travel by train instead of taking a flight. Some of his best descriptions are about trains, e.g. “Far-flung in the afternoon distance a great metal whistle sighed and echoed, steam shuffled as a train cut across valley trestles, over cool rivers through ripe cornfields, into tunnels like finger into thimble, under arches of shimmering walnut trees.”

Though the themes are sinister, the author presents these stories with a light touch, bordering on the comic. Humour can be a coping mechanism in the face of horror or grief. Even the supernatural aspects serve to highlight the follies of everyday human existence.

An excellent collection, recommended for those who like this genre.

As Bradbury's first work, I was expecting this to be a bit rough around the edges, but this 1947 anthology blew me away and has aged incredibly well. As to be expected with any collection, the quality is variable, and a few stories do feel like early pieces that simply work up to a punchline, but the vast majority are assured tales filled with evocative writing, and the best ones are staggeringly good - I think 'Skeleton' might simply be the best short story I've ever read. Whilst horror is the theme, for the most part Bradbury isn't going for scares so much as gleefully revelling in the deliciously macabre, and frequently seems to be on the side of the 'monsters', which gives things a unique feel. One exception however, is the final story 'The Next in Line' - the longest and most serious piece, in which Bradbury removes any hint of playfulness and goes for the jugular. Highly recommended.