You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bonnybedlam 's review for:
'Salem's Lot
by Stephen King
Having read this book many times, both as a fan and now as a critic, there's not much the say about it. There are vampires, Stevie Sue is the hero, both in the guise of a young writer and a heroic 10 year old boy, and all of the women are either dead or useless. By the end of the book, they're all both.
Still, I felt compelled to re-read it and see if I could find some of what had so attracted and frightened me as a teenager. I didn't. However, the Kindle edition is different enough to be worth noting. The novel Salem's Lot takes up 80% of the book. The other 20% consists of two short stories also involving Salem's Lot: One for the Road, which takes place after the novel, and Jerusalem's Lot, which was the first use of the name and is actually unrelated, and some omitted sections of the original manuscript.
The omitted scenes confirm that Jerusalem's Lot was originally a one-off story by showing that the novel was originally set in a town called Momson. This place is mentioned in the final novel, but is in Vermont and may or may not have a vampire problem. One scene also answers some small questions from the novel, as it was cut but the scenes that refer back to it remained unedited. (This is typical with King's work, most notably in the first published version of The Stand, and leaves one wondering where his editor is in the process.)
Other than that, the omitted scenes are for serious fans only. Being first and second draft work, they come off as unpolished and badly fitting, and including them here serves no real purpose other than to let the author sing out his ego for a few more pages in an already overlong book, overburdened with the voice of his ego from the first page. The only useful message here might be to new inexperienced writers who must be shown that even famous bestselling authors write two or three drafts.
Lastly, if you have to set up your haunted house book by quoting the entire opening setup from another author's haunted house book, you might want to take a minute and think about what you're doing. Because to me it looks like you can't set your scene without the reader having that other, better, scene as a starting point. Or worse that you're somehow equal to it, having stolen it and attached it to your own story. Which is really just the opening note to the opera of ego that follows.
Still, I felt compelled to re-read it and see if I could find some of what had so attracted and frightened me as a teenager. I didn't. However, the Kindle edition is different enough to be worth noting. The novel Salem's Lot takes up 80% of the book. The other 20% consists of two short stories also involving Salem's Lot: One for the Road, which takes place after the novel, and Jerusalem's Lot, which was the first use of the name and is actually unrelated, and some omitted sections of the original manuscript.
The omitted scenes confirm that Jerusalem's Lot was originally a one-off story by showing that the novel was originally set in a town called Momson. This place is mentioned in the final novel, but is in Vermont and may or may not have a vampire problem. One scene also answers some small questions from the novel, as it was cut but the scenes that refer back to it remained unedited. (This is typical with King's work, most notably in the first published version of The Stand, and leaves one wondering where his editor is in the process.)
Other than that, the omitted scenes are for serious fans only. Being first and second draft work, they come off as unpolished and badly fitting, and including them here serves no real purpose other than to let the author sing out his ego for a few more pages in an already overlong book, overburdened with the voice of his ego from the first page. The only useful message here might be to new inexperienced writers who must be shown that even famous bestselling authors write two or three drafts.
Lastly, if you have to set up your haunted house book by quoting the entire opening setup from another author's haunted house book, you might want to take a minute and think about what you're doing. Because to me it looks like you can't set your scene without the reader having that other, better, scene as a starting point. Or worse that you're somehow equal to it, having stolen it and attached it to your own story. Which is really just the opening note to the opera of ego that follows.