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Simply taken as a contemporary vampire novel, 'Salem's Lotis great fun to read, and has been very influential in the horror genre. But it's also a sly piece of social commentary. As King said in 1983, "In 'Salem's Lot, the thing that really scared me was not vampires, but the town in the daytime, the town that was empty, knowing that there were things in closets, that there were people tucked under beds, under the concrete pilings of all those trailers. And all the time I was writing that, the Watergate hearings were pouring out of the TV.... Howard Baker kept asking, 'What I want to know is, what did you know and when did you know it?' That line haunts me, it stays in my mind.... During that time I was thinking about secrets, things that have been hidden and were being dragged out into the light." Sounds quite a bit like the idea behind his 1998 novel of a Maine hamlet haunted by unsightly secrets, Bag of Bones. --Fiona Webster

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Bedtime Story

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I must be weird. Why? Because I like to periodically re-read this book as way of getting to sleep! It's not because it's boring and soporific; far from it. It's just that I've been reading this book on occasion since I was quite young and it's just a nice, comfortable read for me. I don't think King has really surpassed this novel (although The Stand comes close). One of the things that gets me most about this book is the atmosphere. It's full of, rather beautiful, Autumnal imagery and, for some reason, reminds me of the autumn days of my youth (there weren't many vampires though!). It's not perfect by any means, some of the dialogue is painful, but I think it's a brilliant read.

The king of comedy!

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Maybe it's just my lack of understanding, but I personally found this novel to be utter garbage. As with Mr King's other famous books, this is about as scary as Noel Edmonds, and is also extremely boring, crude, ill-written, and utterly laughable. Over half of the entire book is taken up with uninteresting and unnecessary talking, none of which builds up the atmosphere or plot, and all of the supposedly frightening scenes are actually woefully inept, feeble and unoriginal. Don't misunderstand me here - Stephen King CAN write well when he wants to (such as in a few of his short stories), but the vast majority of all his works are not done so. Of course, if you've only ever read one or two novels in your life then you'll probably love this one; as for everyone else, I suggest you look elsewhere, preferably somewhere where you'll find less commercialised and more atmospheric horror novels - ones which read as if they're actually written by a professional writer, rather than rubbish written by someone who continually produces mainstream modern trash for the sake of easy money.

A truely Mega 'Byte' Tale of Horror	Customer Rating:
I once read that Stephen King was to write a sequel to Salems Lot. Whilst I would be first in the queue to buy any attempt of a follow up, Mr. King would have to produce a mammoth effort to match the original which I can safely add is the greatest book I have ever read!

Not as good as expected

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I'm a big King fan and expected much from this book - especially having heard it's one of this best, and most defining, works. However, for some reason, I found myself feeling sadly let down. To be fair to King, this book was written back in the 70s and I can imagine that, for its time, it probably did set a benchmark in horror. It just doesn't seem to have endured. Stephen King does have a tendency to ramble, left to his own devices - and I just found that this book consisted mainly of a very slow set up. I can see that this is possibly necessary - that a picture of small town normality had to be painted and characters well drawn in order to make what happens in Salem's Lot resonate more. It just went on for too long though - and the shocks weren't quite strong enough. Added to this, the vampire story wasn't especially original. The plot line, at the end of the day, could be reduced to a couple of sentences. Nothing beyond what you'd expect to happen actually did happen. Compare this to the writing of, say, Kim Wilkins (not especially well known in the UK, but a fine horror writer nonetheless) - in particularly The Resurrectionists - and you can see where King's novel falls short; both in terms of pace and plot. That said, you still can't take it away from King that he's still one of the world's foremost horror writers and there are many who will love Salem's Lot. And if they don't enjoy this book, there will be another King offering that's guaranteed to make the flesh crawl!

Hooked on King.

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My title for this review is 'Hooked on King'. I was after first watching the Tobe Hooper TV film of Salem's Lot and then reading the book as a terrified ten year old. Whilst I'm not so hooked on him now, I still return to Salem's Lot periodically for I felt, at least for a while, back in my childhood, that I really lived there, so real did this writer make the place. I went up to the Marsten house with friends, and missing relatives tapped on my window while everyone slept begging, 'let me in.' I walked through the misty woodlands and took great care in crossing the stream, knowing that a slip would spell the sweetest of pains and Barlow. I might return to The Lot soon. But will The Lot keep me this time.