Awesome vampire story. Classic horror, a great job by King.

The beginning of the book drags with boring mundane details, but it picks up when one of the characters tells of a frightening childhood experience in the infamous "Marsten House" which continues to haunt his dreams. I was just getting drawn into the story when I read about one of the 'Salem's Lot residents, a teen mom who loses her temper and violently lashes out at her ten month old baby leaving his eyes bruised and swollen. At this point, I was horrified and had to stop reading the book. No matter how great the book may be, I don't want have those disgusting images in my mind.

Jerusalem's Lot is an unassuming small town in southern Maine. It is the kind of town where everybody knows everybody else and most of the residents have lived there all of their lives. In this atmosphere it was odd indeed when three strangers came to town at almost the same time. One of these strangers wasn't really a stranger at all. He had spent part of his childhood there and had returned in hopes of ridding himself of some old demons. The other two strangers also had an old connection with the town but it was a much darker and sinister connection.

Stephen King starts his macabre tail with these facts and then begins to weave a fascinating tail. He introduces the reader to the town in such a way that it makes one feel as if he had actually been to this fictional place. The reader will get to know many of the residents, some all too well. Some are likable, some are loathsome, and some are described so well that the reader will actually mourn their passing. One can easily feel Ben Mears' pain when he finds out that someone that he is very close to is gone.

As the dark cloud of vampirism spreads across the town there are a few residents who figure out what is going on. Some refuse to believe what logic and their senses tell them and they fall victim to the curse while others figure things out in time to flee. A few try to stop the spread of this evil and pay dearly. For those who have not seen one of the movies based on this book, this is all of the story that I am going to give away. For those who have seen the movies, neither movie follows the book too closely and the book is far superior to either film.

King's flair for this type of story is well known and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed with this book. It will entertain you, it will scare you, and it will delight you. While reading parts of this book I was able to feel the sense of dread that many people in the Lot were feeling. King is indeed a master when it comes to bringing gloom and doom off of his pages and into the hearts of his readers.

There are a few places where it is a little hard to follow just who is saying what in some of the conversations but beyond that I could find few flaws. I found it very interesting that the reader would not be able to figure out what was happening to the town until about the same time some of the characters do. Of course, that was when this book first came out. I dare say that few people who start this book now, nearly thirty years after it was written will be surprised by the basics of the story. The creepy factor must have been much greater before the plot was given away by the movies, but rest assured, there are still plenty of creeps between the covers of this book.

My favorite vampire book. The chracters in the book were some of the best developed I have seen in a while. I cared for the characters and wanted to see what would happen in this small little town. Besides the Dark Tower series this is one of my favorite King books.

I was not prepared to like this book, but within a couple of chapters I was hooked. I can honestly say it was one of my favorites of Stephen King's! If ya love vampire tales with a bit of an oddity then this is a keeper!

This book will stay with me forever. One of the best King stories! Read This Book!!

GREAT just in time for Halloween1

One of my personal favorites. A real thrill for those who enjoy a good vampire story.

Classic Stephin King. One of the novels from the beginning of his career that made him a name to be whispered in the dark.

I've read all of King's books and this is the creepiest.

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A vampire book from the old-school vampire tradition: no cuddly, emotionally available vamps here. It's a fun, relatively easy read and is great for the Halloween season. The pacing is good and I liked the character development. There is nothig really revolutionary about this book in terms of the horror genre, but it is enjoyable and a little scary.

One of the slowest vampire books I've ever read. I found myself skipping monotonous passages where King was just blathering on about some meaningless made up history. This book was supposed to scare, but it just made me yawn and pity the characters foolish enough to get in the way of a vampires.

Long and booooring!

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