'Salem's Lot

But I do think that this was clearly intended to be a vampire hunting story.

I mean, it is no coincidence that Jerusalem's Lot is the name of the New York, because that is the name of the small town in Maine from Salem's Lot.

That is the full name of it.

It's a Stephen King book-

I kind of like that.

It's interesting for me because the desert setting of Trigun is so sparse but feels so alive.

While I definitely like how Jerusalem's Lot, or I should throw caution to the anime fans, Hell Salem's Lot I think it's called in the anime, the world definitely feels real and, like, his background work is nice enough with all the architecture and the lamps and all this kind of stuff to make me believe this is a place, but it doesn't kind of take up the same space as the desert did in Trigun for me.

Like, the characters being in that environment I think lent something to the storytelling, whereas here the setting is much more a playground for these characters to get up to high jinks.

Right.

He does this in Salem's Lot, too.

Yes.

King utilizes a very similar methodology there.

i'm glad i didn't read it because i have a dog and it would make me sad

oh it's genuinely it's like the book is like misery everything in it is so fucking sad but that's something we can we can circle back to later again in the book though there's a lot more stalking in this like he sees Cujo's eyes in the fog which I get might be hard to do live action and not seem weird it's like did you ever read Salem's Lot

no I've seen the original, like, three-hour movie.

Whoa.

I think it's because the book was so grim the entire way through that people can't fathom the idea of just the ending being just as fucking sad.

Which I don't...

Because the reason I like King's novels was through reading Kudrow and Pet Sematary where I'm like, these are fucking, like... horrific tales and really fucking sad and I'm like this is good this impacts me and then I read Salem's Lot where there's like like it's there's not the tone's not there and there's like the ending's weird for that and it's not as like there's like more comedic moments I'm like I think King works better when he's just being fucking

miserable

So this, as my mother would say, is a crock of shit.

The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Stephen King's Salem's Lot, Steven Spielberg's Jaws, three examples, one an album, one a book, and another a movie, that all defy the definition of serious critical merit from serious cultural critics.

Sgt. Pepper's abandoned traditional pop single song format and production for avant-garde orchestral arrangements and instrumentation, and the result was not only a creative masterpiece, but an instant commercial success as well.

In Salem's Lot, Stephen King teamed his plot-driven horror with blue collar character studies.

It was a combination nobody asked for, nobody wanted, and nobody saw coming.

And initially, the critics relegated his bestseller to down seller, but once it went paperback a few months after its release, they came around.

Oh, Tim.

Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim.

Like it's difficult, you know, because all lyrical writing is in a way, not all of it, but a lot of it in rock and roll.

is fantasy so i have this i'm gonna i'm careening way way way way off of the theme here i have vampires on the brain because i'm rereading salem's lot because my son is reading salem's lot and i'm trying to stay a couple chapters ahead of him to ward off the vampire no to see like if there's anything that's too advanced for him that i'm worried he's going to scar him for life oh

right

The whole family, so my wife is reading it.

Carrie was first, right? That's his first book.

Yeah.

Salem's Lot is his second.

Yeah, something

King was struggling.

He had published two novels, Carrie and Salem's Lot.

but he was far from successful.

Money was tight, and he was working on a new idea but couldn't seem to make it work.

Double feature.

We're going to be doing Salem's Lot.

Something that I wanted to do last year, but I was reading the book at the time.

and it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my reading journey but something that I am really glad I kept with because it really made me understand King on a whole different level and it's totally changed how I read King going forward and I can't wait.

I cannot get past a certain part in it until I am banging my head off the absolute brick of a book that it is.

Audiobook way forward.

But Salem's Lot was easier to break because the layers were just keeping adding on and adding on and adding on.

And when I thought nothing was actually happening, everything was happening.