Often what we, as an audience, expect from creative talent often does not coincide with that they expect of themselves.

In 'Salem's Lot, we have King's second published novel immediately after Carrie. There are many trademarks exposed here. One in particular is the haunted town; or, a town that has a horror essence that the inhabitants can sense but do not necessarily place their collective finger upon. Another is casting the lead character as a writer (write what you know). King has many, many works in which the lead is a writer of some sort. Often, they expose the tribulations of being a published author before succumbing to whatever horrors exist in their world.

The novel itself is rather slow moving. However, I did not feel that this in anyway impaired the body of work. For one, because the town of Jerusalem's Lot is written as its own character, the reader visits many of those affected by the town's lingering evils. And we get to visit those people committing their secrets, knowing their darkest aspects. Being that the last book I read was a reread of Needful Things, I considered reading 'Salem's Lot as the genesis of visiting this style of looking within the sins of the common characters within their homes. In essence, their acts were selfish and monstrous before the supernatural comes and makes slaves of the Lot.

King was a different person by far while he wrote this during the 1970s. I feel as those he was far cynical as to the happenings of his creations and focused on much more specific details. I feel as though his earlier books were less about the people and more about the interactions of people within a scheme. It is as though he were writing the largest diorama and his part is to explain the details of what's what.

As his works mature with him, King takes on a more folksy approach to storytelling. Here in 'Salem's Lot, that Americana folksiness is a mere whisper as he thinks up the next terror to throw at us.

With all of that typed out by yours truly, I should state that I did enjoy the book immensely. I felt as though the first two-thirds of the book is written like a mystery with a gang of newly-found friends wondering what the heck is going on. Many times the group is separated and each character has to mention what he or she knows to others in the group when they finally meet up again. It reminded me a bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, actually…. Nevertheless, the yarn that is told here is an engrossing one that leaves the reader with the cogs spinning in his head making up his own ending after reading the last sentence. (And if what you imagine for yourself doesn't answer what-happens-next? why, one could just pick up the Dark Tower series and read the Wolves of the Calla and find out.) ( )

I remember being completely enrapt reading 'Salem's Lot. I don't know if I just outgrew King or if King indeed sloughed off talent-wise over the years, but rarely have I read something so outstanding, whether genre or literary; a book so ridden with doom, so sickly sinister, and such a phantasmagoric page turner that it sucked in its lust all my free time dry (and sucked time dry I didn't have that should've been spent studying or sleeping). O what a brooding, gloomy, pseudo gothic (gothic chic, let's call it), macabre masterpiece, 'Salem's Lot.

A vampire novel written the way vampire novels were meant to be written back when they were still written right by writers with actual know-how and skills (Anne Rice's debut included): with actual, that is, creative and ingenious implementation of literary stylistic and narrative techniques such as character and plot development; creepy foreshadowing; nuanced, perverted symbolism (both libidinal and religious); and physically palpable suspense ever increasing, pulsating like punctured carotid arteries, raising high the blood pressure to a breathless denouement....suspense so intense I flipped on all the lights at night when I recklessly read it, 'Salem's Lot, alone and vulnerable to imagined, (but-it-felt-so-real!)-vampire attacks inside an isolated suburban tract on a full moon'd cul-de-sac; the skeletal-like houses under construction each side of my house, grotesque and baroque in their exposed incompletion, adding to the awful ambiance of dread and the undead, emanating like an evil breeze from outside my foolishly left open windows.

Or written, I should say, a la Stoker, a la Lovecraft, to which 'Salem's Lot paid its rightful (and frightful) homage.

The made-for-TV-movie of 'Salem's Lot, starring David Soul of Starsky and Hutch and Here Come the Brides fame, singer of the 1976 #1 Billboard hit, "Don't Give Up on Us, Baby," stunk it up like garlic - just like that schmaltzy pop song of Soul's - but not the book by Stephen King. Never the book by Stephen King. So read the book, 'Salem's Lot, by Stephen King...if you dare.

Ah hahahahahahahahaha.... ( )

I've read a lot of positive reviews about this book and eventually decided to read it. Unfortunately, because of this my expectations were high and I was disappointed. The beginning is quite slow and it takes a while before anything happens. There are good moments later in the book, but it's not really worth it. There are many other Stephen King novels that are much better than this one.

I didn't find anything about 'Salems Lot to be particularly original and probably won't bother reading it again. ( )

I enjoyed this, but I'm a quick reader--this one took me two days to get through. If I'd spent more time on it, I think I may have gotten frustrated with the slow-build; it took King quite a while to introduce the major characters (and a lot of minor, on-off characters, too), and after the first 100 pages I was somewhat impatient.

As it was, I read this one quickly, and quite enjoyed it. I like that the reader is kept guessing for so long as to the exact nature of the evil menacing the town, though once the culprit is revealed, the lore gets a bit muddy, and more than a few loose-ends are left hanging at the end.

Still, I enjoyed the characters, and there were enough truly clever sections in this book to offset the bits I was less impressed by. Not my favorite Stephen King novel, but I wouldn't warn anyone away from it. ( )

"Turn of the television - in fact, why don't you turn off all the lights except for the one over your favourite chair? - and we'll talk about vampireshere in the dim. I thibnk I can make you believe in them." -- Stephen King, from the introduction.

Yes, you did. After reading 'salem's Lot I could truly imagine a sleepy town being whittled down to nothing in the day, and vampires at night. It is mentioned that the vampiric inhabitants of Jerusalem's Lot had developed social skills and had found a way of entertaining themselves. A scary thought.

It's weird to think that this was only King's second publication (not necessarily his second written) his writing style and use of language is very advanced for such a young writer. He writes very descriptively, yet still writes so the reader is able to imagine the narration of the story being told by Stephen King himself.

King is well-known for the depth and creativeness he puts into his characters. One of which is Father Callahan, a drunk, Irish Preist who seems to have lost faith. After being defeated by Marlow, he leaves 'salem's Lot rather abruptly to an unknown location. It may seem as though the preist's story is only half told, yet I have the seven volumes of the Dark Tower series (which I have not yet read, expect for the Gunslinger) and am aware that Father Callahan makes a return for the fifth volume in the series, Wolves of the Calla. Speaking of series, the ending of 'salem's Lot is somewhat vague, and in my opinion is open to a sequel of some kind...although it doesn't make sense to write a sequel to a book you wrote forty or so years ago...if King was going to write a sequel it would have been done already...

I noticed a number of typing errors in this edition of 'salem's Lot, such as Mark Petrie was sometimes spelt Mark PetriC. Despite that I like this book a lot, and feel as though I could read it again...and again...and again :) ( )

King's version of vampires. A good tale. ( )

Seriously? I think this is THE BEST horror novel about vampires. Subtle and in your face at the same time. Nothing sexy about these vampires, just horrifying! ( )

Stephen King's homage to Dracula is a really gripping, scary vampire story in which the small town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, is gradually taken over by vampires. Great early King. ( )

King's story of what would happen if Dracula arrived in a small town (Jerusalem's Lot) in Maine in 1975. (If he'd arrived in a city, he'd get run by a "hansom" over like Margaret Mitchell.) One of the original title ideas was The Second Coming.

Stephen King is a much more compelling, and terrifying, storyteller than Bram Stoker in Dracula. Stoker writes more of a personal diary, a distant narrative. King plays across your nerves and emotions endings. No movie will ever be able to capture the emotional mastery of King's writing. A good movie might be made, but it won't be the same.

King is more viscerally horrifying than Koontz. King has fewer moments of lightness, and no real hope of a happy ending for anyone. The only happiness is a set up to make the impact more devastating later. The two heroes return to the town to kill the remaining vampires, but we don't get to see if they triumph, or survive. The story is actually perfectly set up for a sequel, which he never seems to have intended to write.

Father Callahan, who appears in the Dark Tower series, first appears here. ( )

A truly horrifying tale. ( )

I just finished book 4 of King's Dark Tower series, so read 'Salem's Lot in preparation for book 5. His voice in this book reminds me a lot of the way he treated The Stand - lots of characters and a battle of good versus evil. I liked particularly the way King describes a world with tangible evil, where Faith can give you respite and shelter. In fact, I liked his approach in this book over the prophet and messenger Mother Abigail from The Stand.

However, I disliked King's treatment of Father Callahan. I liked seeing a priest that questioned his own faith and felt like he was meant for another time or place - that he wanted true evil to exist, so he could define himself as a wall against it. His faith faltered in the face of Barlow and he was left tainted. But, then, despite seeking redemption, God casts him away from his bosom and he flees the town on a bus. It felt capricious, and his story feels only half told. ( )

King captures small town life, the fears of adults and children, and the evolving nature of the battle between good and evil with insight and in an engaging style. ( )

Brilliant. This was the book that gave me the reading bug back in 1982. Re-read this about five times. ( )

Classic vampire tale, definately one of the better ones.

Salem's Lot was one of the first Stephen Kings I read, but even as a teenager I was already familiar with the story from the David Soul-starring TV mini series. (By the way, has anyone seen the Rob Lowe remake from a few years back? Worth my time?) Reading it again after all these years, I was captivated by the strength of the storytelling. King is at his best when given a large cast - or a small town - to play with, and there are many times in the first half of this book that I found myself wishing the horror wouldn't even come, such was I enjoying the everyday goings on in the Lot. King creates well-rounded characters you care about, so much that you hate the idea that anything horrible might happen to them... even though you know it's going to. Salem's Lot is a huge sprawling epic of a story (yet much tighter than much of the author's recent output), and were it not for all the vampires, it'd now be regarded as one of the great American novels of the 70s - by everybody, not just those of us unblinkered by genre snobbery.

Read the full review at my blog. ( )

This was the first horror novel I read and what a doozey! It switched me on to a genre that has become my favourite and I am eternally grateful to Stephen King for that! What I found most compelling about this story was the friendship between Ben Mears and Mark Petrie. Two characters that are, in their own ways, lost, find each other and a common purpose. As a child of 13 I was engaged by the idea of a teenager and an adult operating on the same level. A memorable book and one I have returned to many times over the years. ( )

I thought that this was one of the best vampire novels of all time. King does a great job of building up all the characters, and there are plenty of very creepy and frightening moments in this. If you get through the somewhat draggy middle section, you will really enjoy this if you are interested by all the things that go "bump" in the night. Probably my favorite King book so far, but then again, I haven't read The Stand. ( )

In my honest opinion this is the best book he has ever written, it still scares me to this day. ( )

It's interesting -- I hadn't known before reading that the book was about vampires. I think I enjoyed it much more for not having known this in advance, yes... ( )

One of King’s least original works. It adds nothing to the vampire literature. Only King’s mastery of storycraft saves this book and makes it enjoyable. ( )

Stephen King scores another home run with the creepiest small-town vampires. ( )

Still probably my favorite King book. ( )

Book-lovers, be afraid. The time of the vampire is at hand. These days, one needs only to walk into a bookshop to be practically assaulted by them – and yet, most of today's vampires are hardly vampires at all. Edward Cullen, for example, doesn't have fangs, doesn't drink human blood, and likes sunlight so much that he positively sparkles in it. To find traditional vampires, one has to return to the roots of vampire fiction, and 'Salem's Lot is undeniably among those roots. Granted, there are clichés aplenty here – King's splashing around of holy water is especially Hollywood-esque – but there's something to be said for a novel that wears its clichés so unabashedly, as if to say, "Baby, I'm a classic. I invented the entire holy water thing."

There's not much to this story, really. Vampire moves into a small country town and turns it into an outpost of the undead – not complex, not new. 'Salem's Lot is essentially a disaster novel. We all know how it will end; it's the telling of the tale that captures our attention – and who better to tell a horror story than Stephen King? The darker scenes radiate a palpable tension, and when the climaxes hit, they hit hard. There are some powerful moments here – images that will stay with readers long after they turn the final page – embedded in a protracted but reasonably pacy slab of prose. The only drawback is that readers will have to wade through the first third of the novel before the story really takes off.

Tedious though it may be, however, King's scene-setting is (generally) essential to one of his novel's strongest attributes: its ability to transcend its genre and be more than just a horror flick in print. 'Salem's Lot is an investigation into the very nature of evil itself. King fleshes out a powerful contrast between the evil of the night – of the bible, of childhood, and of the invading vampires – and the many-faced evil of the day – of the modern world, of adulthood, and of the townspeople. So what if King can scare me – what really counts is that he can scare me twice and make me contemplate the philosophical difference between the two fears.

It may drag a little, but for reasons I can appreciate, 'Salem's Lot is sure to endure as a vampire classic. Give it a go – but don't waste your money on the 'Illustrated Edition'. ( )

My Bookspotcentral review ( )

This book reads like an action movie, haha. I felt this way because at certain points I would think to myself... dang, that's awesome. The book is (from my understanding) a modern day Dracula story. An old-world vampire moves into a small American town and moves into the 'castle' and begins to feed on his population of 'peasants'. The hero, the local writer, begins to catch on when people start to turn up... undead. You can see where this goes. Together with his friends and the local Catholic priest he must destroy this ancient menace and reclaim his town. Awesome. ( )