I am a pretty big fan of Stephen King but had put off reading this book because I felt that vampires have been overused in media. But King took this supernatural concept which had been beaten to death by movies and shows like Twilight and the Vampire Diaries and brought them back from beyond the grave, pun intended. This book features signature Stephen King characteristics, like jumping back and forth between different character plots through vignettes and the power of the willingness to believe in things that seem impossible. Things get wilder and wilder throughout the book for an end that (MINOR SPOILER) in my opinion was a little anticlimactic, but still good since it left some things to the imagination.

Not one of my favorite novels by King, which was surprising to me, since it's been talked up so much, and because it has one of the biggest connections to his Dark Tower series.

Simply put, I felt that the first half of the book was very slow. Even after it picked up, I struggled with bits of it, partly because vampire mythology was never my favorite horror sub-genre, and maybe because the cast of human characters dealt with their disbelief literally throughout the entire story. I loved when the main villain was finally introduced and given a voice, but they were totally snubbed way too soon after that happened.

In his introduction, King looks back on his early writing (this was only his second published novel) with some disdain. The flaws were pretty noticeable to me, after getting accustomed to some of his later novels.

Still, I enjoyed the book overall. I'm looking forward to reading some more of his short stories, and maybe jumping into The Outsider once I'm ready for another full-length S.K. novel.

2nd novel 1975

If you thought the TV show was scary, you ain't seen nothin' yet. More than 650 pages and you're caught from the very first paragraph. There is so much more to the story than they could show on TV. This was King's second hit novel, so the horror quotient is very high. You'll find you don't want to read it at night.

A fun and suspenseful vampire novel by the great Stephen King.

I'm a sucker for stories about small towns with dark secrets. I'm not a sucker for vampires. Having said that, I enjoyed King's second novel quite a bit. It has several genuinely creepy moments, including an infant vampire and a group of vampire children who take their revenge on an abusive bus driver. I'm having a hard time going to the basement at night now, as I'm sure I'm going to see a pale, undead face peering through a window every time I go down to do a load of laundry. Thanks, Stephen King.

One of the most interesting things about some of the reading I've been doing lately is noticing the changes in writers over time. It doesn't have to be over as much time as passed for Stephen King between <i>'Salem's Lot</i> and <i>Black House</i> or even <i>The Green Mile</i>, but I did enjoy the very subtle differences and was grateful for the big ones.

Most clearly, the King who wrote the latter books is a lot different than the King who wrote the first. He still talks beer, he still draws good characters. In the case of <i>Lot</i>, though, I never had the feeling that there were characters like the super-literate biker gang or the tough grandmother in him. The closest he comes is Mabel Werts, but the characters in <i>Lot</i> are more coarsely drawn for all their believability. He's still going with schoolteachers and writers, and that's fine! Later on, he'll reach a lot farther.

That said, this is a fantastic vampire story. He takes a lot of the vulnerabilities and abilities from popular culture, but before vampires were tired this was perfectly acceptable. King was never afraid to kill off characters and the bloodbath here is more than figurative. Character after character falls to the evil infesting the town. I think one of the most chilling parts is the one where he describes how the town is dead - it just doesn't know it yet. The breakdown of the police is appalling. It's fantastic.

It's not my favorite King book. But it acquits itself well, especially if you're willing to put yourself back into the 1970s and remember how it was then - and the terror it would have brought at the time. 4 of 5 stars.

One of my favourites. No one else's books capture the history of a place in all it's nostalgia and creep like Stephen King. Great summertime horror for me.

Not nearly as full of gore as many of the current books are, yet well written and can still make you think about old houses. King even tips his hat to Shirley Jackson using a quote from her book the Haunting of Hill House.( I really liked that one too.)
"'And whatever walked there, walked alone.' You asked what my book was about. Essentially, it’s about the recurrent power of evil.” That seems to sum it all up. I was engaged and interested in the book until the very end.

Classic horror. This was the first Stephen King I read when it was published back in the '70s and I re-read it recently. The story isn't as scary as my old memories made it out to be but it's well told with good development and a dawning sense of creepiness throughout. Nice ending too!