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Stephen King ruined the legacy of Salem's Lot by referencing it in other works.

posted 2 years ago by [deleted]
4 replies | jump to latest

Ever since the late 80s or so Stephen King said he was working on a direct sequel to Salem's Lot, which would have been nice, but instead he screwed it all up by creating some weird meta reference in The Gunslinger books where Salem's Lot is a work of fiction, and then made things even worse by belittling the vampires in the novel Doctor Sleep. He reduced them to inferior versions of the True Knot people who went into Salem's Lot and destroyed all the surviving vampires.

Back in the day it was fun to read a King novel with a cross reference with another novel as he mentioned Salem's Lot in Pet Sematary as a sign for an offramp on a freeway as Rachel drives home near the end of the book, but he took these cross references too far to the point of ruining the original with retconning.

I find it best to forget about anything written by King after 1985 as good, which is also the last time he wrote while drunk and on cocaine.

[–] April-151-CT (10210) 2 years ago

I do agree. But also, him bringing up the type of vampire that Reggie Nalder's Barlow is in the gunslinger books kind of goes to show how very iconic this Barlow is compared to the novel Barlow. If it wasn't for the 1979 Barlow, he never would have wrote that stuff. But it is a retcon nonetheless and I am definitely not a fan of retconning.

[–] Gary O. (1009) 2 years ago

Wasn't familiar with the term 'retcon', so I looked it up.

I agree with you on this. On the old IMDb boards, this was discussed as well, without the name that you correctly gave it, and some posters there got a bit miffed when inconsistencies in the book and both of the films were pointed out.

An example would be Barlow's entering the Petrie house uninvited. Matt Burke pointed out and this was later affirmed by Mark that a vampire cannot enter a house uninvited, and the explanation given by some was that Barlow was a master vampire, so this rule did not apply to him. I believe that this is claptrap. A much simpler explanation is King goofed here.

King, even though I really love many of his stories, is sometimes a very sloppy writer and he has quite a few inconsistencies in his novels.

Good observation on your part.

[–] ADBruno1985 (3506) 2 years ago

I don't know, it worked for me. I started reading King in high school. Salem's Lot was within the first five I've read. I've reread it a few times and consider it a favorite. I long felt like Father Callahan's story seemed unfinished. Imagine my surprise when I first read The Dark Tower a few years ago. It's King's universe to do with as he pleases, we're just along for the ride. As for Salem's Lot being referenced as a work of fiction in The Dark Tower, I figure that's just showing how many layered multiverses there are within that particular work of fiction. And I could be wrong, if you can cite a source please correct me, but I'm not aware of the True Knot being a successor to the vampires from Salem's Lot. Anyway, either crowd is terrifying and I wouldn't want to run across

[–] whynotwriteme (7725) 2 years ago

King screwed up royally when he decided to create "The Stephen King Multiverse". I mean, it was cool when he would namedrop a few characters from earlier books here and there in his Derry and Castle Rock stories, but he just took it all too far.