The Regulators

'Regulators' was good enough for me to get through and marginally enjoy, but I felt no connection to the characters and was frankly happy to put it down when finished. It offers a great deal of gore but not much else. Of the two 'Tak' novels written by Stephen King, 'Desperation' is by far the more engrossing and satisfying read.

Stephen King,is ONE OF my all time favorite authors. .I've read every one,2 or 3 times. I LOVE HOW HE CAN MAKE A STORY COME ALIVE. I buy all of his novels. The first one I read was THE STAND. YOU WON'T BELEIVED THIS..... A NUN TOLD ME about it, she said it's great. I didn't know who Stephen King was until then.
Then there is James PATTERSEN, HE CAN'T WRITE FAST ENOUGHT FOR ME. HE'S high on my" reading list 'Women's' Murder Club. Michael Bennett, Alex Cross....;. .....And last but not least Dean Koontz, I just love Brother ODD. I buy hardcovers...ES

Several pages in different locations on the digital download were missing. I'm a big fan of Stephen King's books because he describes the characters and places in rich detail. This book is stingy with the details. It was hard to feel connected to the characters.

There were multiple spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, missing, repeated or wrong words which really made the story hard to enjoy. I have read several other King ebooks and never once saw a mistake until now. I love the story but it took the joy out having to cipher through all the errors the typist made.

Not really judging the book itself, I really couldn't because of spelling, punctuation,sentence structure, repeated words and phrases and everything else that was wrong. But thanks for this if nothing else. I will not buy any more electronic books, I am going back to old fashion paper. Thanks again for driving me away from my favorite possession. Thee e ndd

This book was not written by Stephen King but by a long dead writer he admired, as is admitted in the preface. I love King's writing but this is nothing like it,.
Couldn't read it and this is deceptfull

One sunny afternoon, an entire neighborhood finds itself the center of destruction when a group of demented villains show up in vans and basically shoot anything that moves. As the residents watch in horror, they suddenly realize that this is no random act and that their quiet little neighborhood is under siege.

The Regulators was published under the name Richard Bachman, but most King fans know that Bachman is the pen name King used for several years. As far as his books go, this is one of the tame ones. There are lots of characters to keep track of in this small neighborhood but their personalities are different enough (in most cases) to keep everyone straight. There is a supernatural element but he doesn’t spend too much time on that aspect of it, just the aftermath and how it affects this particularly unlucky neighborhood. The story is a little farfetched but by the end, I was buying it. It’s definitely not one of his stronger books, but I did enjoy reading it and it was a quick read.

When I posted about The Summer of King, and how I wanted to spend my summer reading King books, some of you told me that The Regulators and Desperation happen to be related. When I chose those two to read, I had no idea that they featured parallel worlds. Talk about dense. I mean, if you look real hard you can even see how the cover art connects to one another. Anyway, so although this book was a little tame for me, I appreciate King’s classic sense of humor in relation to being blown to bits, cheating wives and annoying kids. I chuckled many times and now can’t wait to re-read Desperation as I read that one when it first came out and cannot remember a thing about it!

I bougt this book not knowing that it was written by Bachman, Stephen King's Penny Dreadful alter ego. If I'd
known, I wouldn't have purchased this blisteringly bad novel. It's such a gratuitous gross-out that this reader actually wonders if Mr. King is satirizing his own style of writing in this gloppy mess chock full of degradingly stereotypical characters and crass, sophomoric dialogue. Stephen King certainly can't be so financially tanked that this "piece" had to be published. I think Richard Bachman needs to be deep-sixed -- and not in a pet cemetery -- lest his reeking corpse ressurects, grabs a pen and writes another brainspew under the name of Stephen King.

1996 must have been a heady year for Stephen King--coming off the critical and commercial success of his excellent six part serial, The Green Mile, he followed up with a pair of hard hitting, well-written novels, Desperation and The Regulators. Desperation was clearly his best work since Misery. The Regulators, written under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman, was less successful, but pleasurable reading nonetheless.

The Regulators is King's version of the classic Twilight Zone adaptation of Jerome Bixby's short story, "It's a Good Life." The denizens of Poplar Street, located in the small town of Wentworth, Ohio, find themselves sealed off from the rest of the world, trapped in a pocket universe created by the imaginings of an autistic child who has been possessed by a demon. Neighbors must band together to fight off killing machines that seem to have sprung from the television screen.

Desperation features many of the same characters who populated The Regulators, albeit in altered form. Desperation, a small mining town off Route 50 in Nevada, is also under attack by a demon, but here the devastation is far worse. Instead of tormenting a few folks, the demon, after destroying most of the town, has taken to pulling people off the highway to satisfy its perverse longings. Again, a disparate group of people must cooperate to save their lives.

The contrast between these books is startling--if you never noticed the difference between King's and Bachman's styles, reading these two books back to back will be a real eye opener. Bachman creates the aura of immediacy, but we never really get to know his characters. King, on the other hand, hews to his tradition of giving us characters we really care about, people we would like to get to know. Bachman's style is also more disjointed than King's--he tends to jump about, giving the reader bits and pieces as he goes along, while King adheres to a more linear style of storytelling.

Desperation is the superior book. The small asides that link the two books seem natural in Desperation, but more forced in The Regulators. King also does more with the plot elements than does Bachman. Desperation is vintage King--you can feel his energy and confidence from the first sentence. The opening scene sets the pace for the entire book, as two characters are pulled over by a policeman. A nerve-wracking experience to be sure, but one which we are all familiar with. King then takes this ordinary situation and gives it a little twist. As it dawns on the couple that they've been pulled over by Lou Ford's even crazier cousin, they realize they might be in trouble. Little do they know that their problems, and the reader's enjoyment, are only beginning.

Reading these books together should be a lot of fun for most folks. In these novels, King indirectly provides insight into the creative process, proving that it's not where you get your ideas, but how you use them that counts. With the publication of The Green Mile, Desperation and The Regulators, he also showed that he was an extremely savvy marketer, scoring a bookselling hat trick that any advertising professional would envy.

"The Regulators" is more of a carnival ride than a novel. Richard Bachman (King) has spilled a stream of consciousness story onto the pages and created something more akin to a summer blockbuster film. The premise is slightly silly and most of the characters lack depth, but the action has high energy leaving the reader breathless even if it offers nothing more than a thrill ride.

Bachman swiftly creates a stereotypical suburban neighborhood that is blown apart by television characters come to life from an autistic six year olds imagination gone horribly wrong. Tak, an evil spirit that inhabits the boy's mind, bends innocent imaginative fantasy into deadly mayhem and makes for an interesting protagonist that is never fully explored or explained. In fact character development of any kind would presumably only get in the way of the action, so Bachman relies on stock character cut-outs that we relate to through shared stereotypes (i.e. washed-up hippie, spoiled mother, ex jock...). However, the characters don't really matter much (except for Seth and Audrey) to enjoy the story and are only there to drive the plot, action and violence.

I must admit that for everything wrong with this book I breezed through it and enjoyed every minute (except for some of the passages that told a weak back-story and interrupted the action). "The Regulators" will not be remembered as anything special except that you will remember having a great time reading it.

There's a substantial danger that some readers could misinterpret what Stephen King is trying to do in this book. The so-called "companion volume," Desperation, is undoubtedly among the three best books King has EVER written, and stands as a marvelous and deep analysis of man's relationship to an apparently cruel God. This book is a Saturday morning cartoon show run amok. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no real moral to this story, and I don't think you'll have much success finding anything lying beneath the surface. And you know what--that's not such a bad thing.
Now, obviously there are some problems with the book. For starters, using the Bachman pseudonym was a mistake. This is not a Richard Bachman book. In all five of his previous publications, King followed some pretty strict rules about the way Bachman wrote. There was a single protagonist, faced with overwhelming opposition, who generally doesn't come out of his conflict alive or psychologically intact. None of those rules apply here. In fact, apart from some tonal and organizational qualities (the voice of the writing and the chapter organization), this book bears absolutely no relationship to anything Richard Bachman ever wrote before, and King should be ashamed for throwing out the integrity of his own creation for the sake of this concurrent publication trick he was hoping to pull.
The book itself is much more reminiscent of a previous Stephen King work--The Mist--than anything in the Bachman library. Truth be told, this is the novel that The Mist should have been. A group of people are isolated together against an unexplained, malevolent force and those people are then compelled to work together to fix the situation. There are subtle differences, yes, but the essential structure and feel of the two stories are the same, and this book is much better executed. Even with as little "deep" content as this book has, you probably won't be able to stop turning the pages until you finish it. The pacing, plot, and characterization are all well done (though the characters are admittedly a little thin, but who cares in a fantasy oat opera from the planet death?), and there's probably no better novel in the genre with which to pass a few hours. While I wouldn't recommend it for the squeamish, this story certainly represents one pole of Stephen King at his best--solid storytelling in a vivid environment. Any fan of Stephen King, or of the horror, suspense, and fantasy/sci-fi genres should be well pleased.

Having already plodded through 2/3 of King/Bachman's companion novel DESPERATION I should known better than to pay hard cash for THE REGULATORS. The characters are essentially the same - with a few rather pointless changes, Cynthia from ROSE MADDER (easily SK's worst ever novel) is there - as if I needed reminding of RM! Again the central idea - an autistic child who has amazing powers to bring his toys to life and generally terrorise the neighbourhood is spoiled by making him an ESSENTIALLY GOOD child who is possessed by the evil entity TAK (the "evil child with amazing powers" isn't even a particularly original idea, it was done infinitely better in J. Bixby's short SF story IT'S A GOOD LIFE). Perhaps the worst thing about this novel and the reason why it doesn't work is the cardboard nature of the characters. They seem divided into GOOD or EVIL without the familiar human foibles and failings which make characters such as Gard in the TOMMYKNOCKERS or Jack in THE SHINING so believable. Perhaps the worst example of this sort of writing is the scene where the BAD character (Cammie or something like that) wants to blow Seth's brains out and the rest of the GOOD characters agree this would be wrong because he is essentially a GOOD person. Come on, I can just about accept his aunt feeling like that about him, but I can't believe that a load of people in this situation would feel like this about a child they had never met - who is putting their own lives in danger. Think of King's novelette THE FOG where a group of assorted characters are trapped in a supermarket by forces beyond their control - and begin to crack under the pressure and behave in increasingly bizarre ways. THE REGULATORS, however, is not without redeeming qualities and if SK had made a different use of the material I might have enjoyed this novel. I like the Motokops toys coming to life and feel that this novel could have worked better as a satire on TV shows such as POWER RANGERS and the effect they have on children's minds. The western film stuff seems entirely unnecessary and to my mind would have been better left out

A killing spree through Americana is my impression of this book in a nutshell. There are too many characters and you can't feel for or develop emotional attachments to them because no one gets enough page time.

It's death with sex references mixed in, cowboy horror themed. Well described and gory death, but still the killing of average guys and girls. Normally this is something you can relate to; King has true talent for scene descriptions. However he went overboard on the number of characters, and even the 'good' people have nasty faults. The book isn't paced very well, and I wondered 'What is the point of this?' You don't find out what is actually going on until around page 250.

Finally what I really hated about this book were sections were formatted using non-standard typesetting -- very hard to read. My edition is the first trade hardcover edition, still crediting Richard Bachman as the author. Maybe this was changed in later printing, but the version I read had 10+ page passages as journal entries written in black cursive on dark gray backgrounds. Hard to see.

As to whether to buy it? King has written other novels more wonderful than this one. Get one of them instead.

I just reread this work, the strange companion novel to Stephen King's release "Desperation". Certainly not my favourite Stephen King/Bachman book, but not my least favourite, either.

In high school, we actually read a Stephen King novel in AP English class. My professor's theory is that in the future, King may be an actually famous author, not so much for his works per se, but for the introspection into late 20th-Century life that his characters offer. King's characters are real, normal, human people tossed into unimaginable situations by powers outside their will, and react to them in a typical, mortal way. Cabot (the teacher) maintained it was this fundamental humanity that would eventually lead to King's immortality as a writer: his glimpses into the banal of everyday life, punctuated with the insane.

"The Regulators" is no different in that sense; most of the main characters in this work are indistinguishable from people you could find in any city or town in the United States today, placed in a development beyond what any of us are capable of imagining. Personally, I found some of the side pieces; the scripts and such tossed in between chapters-- more distracting than enlightening, but other than that, the work is solid. My overall rating, in one word, is "meh."

I originally listen to this on cassette tape that I checked out from the library. It’s so good I used to sit in my driveway because I didn’t want to turn off the car and go inside and not listen any longer. Well now I have it on audible and I can listen anytime I want. I think this is one of Stephen King’s best works.

As many avid King fans had probably noticed, 'The Regulators' seems to be somehow reflecting of 'Desperation' - it has the same set of characters (more or less), even the same bad guy - all set in a different place. This gives a lot of room for imagination, originality (same story told from a different point of view), and social commentary, Stepgen King style.
One of the things I always liked about S.K.'s writing is that he usually writes about things he knows about - whether its small towns in Maine & their people, creepy monsters, etc. In many of his books, he tries making some sort of social commentary, often using the horror as a tool to demonstrate or bring out the social malady he's discussing. In this case, besides raising issues and concerns about western TV culture, he is also trying to connect the issues raised Desperation (God and religious beliefs) to raise the question: is TV our 'God' these days?
Unfortunately, the answer given in this book is not as half as interesting or well written out as the question is. You think you know your characters - and suddenly, you don't. So instead of concentrating on the story, I was distracted by small details I THOUGHT I knew, but which were only relevant for Desperation, or visa versa.

Bonanza meets Power Rangers meets Escape from New York. This is the story of Seth, an autistic child, and the evil thing which dwells within him. One day it suddenly makes the lives of everyone on Poplar street a living hell, very brief, or frequently both. I will agree that this is not the best story ever told by this author, but it is still a wild, entertaining ride. It reinforces drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs' rule about a good horror tale - "Anybody can die at any time." It all starts with a beautiful, almost poetic description of a hot summer afternoon in an ideal neighborhood in Ohio. The peace is suddenly shattered by shotgun fire as the local paperboy and somebody's pet dog are blasted by strangers in a strange van. The rest of the story is a gripping, detailed account of the happenings over the next few hours and the few people who survive. The only real complaint I have with the story is the large number of characters. I had some difficulty remembering and separating them all in the beginning, but no problems by the end (since most were dead by that point). The story is at times disgusting, always exciting, and really kept me guessing as to who would survive. The musical interludes were interesting - sort of like Roy Rogers doing acid rock.

While Desperation is a sprawling and sometimes hard-to-digest tome of King's, The Regulators represents the flipside in more ways than the obvious. The novel moves along at a pretty steady pace and allows the reader to become immersed in the story, and even though Tak is mentioned fairly often, it does not work to the detriment of the plot.

Fans of Dreamcatcher or Cujo may be pulled in by the story, which takes place over a very short span, considering the breadth of some of his other works. It takes place, ostensibly, over the course of the afternoon. A very, very, very event-filled afternoon.

At one point the book takes on an oddly Dark-Tower-ish feel, with the landscape and villains shifting and changing toward the absurd. I can't help but think the MotoKops are the Power Rangers, and thinking of them during the more violent scenes was unsettling.

Overall, though, The Regulators is one of Stephen King's better 90's works. Definitely better and more optimistic than Desperation. Good for those who are fans of Stephen King or surreal fiction, but not recommended for those just getting into his large body of works.

I almost didn't finish this book multiple times in the first half of the book. I just really didn't find the characters or concept very interesting. That changed a little in the second half of the book as you get a clearer understanding of the relationship between Seth and Tak. If you like guns and gore you might like this story, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people. If you love everything written by Stephen King, then go ahead and read this, too. Otherwise, I would pass on this book. For reference, I didn't enjoy The Talisman by King/Straub, and I found this book on par with that as far as reading enjoyment.

Our resident master of horror, Stephen King, chalked up another first with the simultaneous 1996 publication of two huge grisly page turners, "Desperation", and under the pseudonym of "the late" Richard Bachman, "The Regulators."

A juxtaposition of the two covers reveals one picture - a menacing suburban landscape overlapping a western ghost town overrun with critters. But the two novels (almost 1200 pages of late nights and disturbing dreams) are each complete in themselves.

"Desperation" is set in a tiny Nevada mining town of the same name and "The Regulators" takes place on one block of an Ohio suburb. What the two novels share is their characters and the same elemental evil force, Tak, which has escaped from a deep mine shaft.

Although King has saved himself some work here - the characters have essentially the same personalities and backgrounds in both books - neither book provides a clue to anyone's fate in the other. The books are not sequential but alternate versions, alternate lives.

In "Desperation" the characters are assembled by Collie Entragian, an outsize cop whose initially strange mix of friendliness and menace is eerily chilling. Apparently at random, he stops passing motorists and carries them off to jail. Some, however, don't make it all the way to jail, and it gradually becomes clear that Entragian has murdered everyone in town. But something weird is happening to the cop, too. He is literally and gorily falling apart.

In "The Regulators" the characters are already assembled as neighbors on Poplar Street. Their glorious summer day is shattered by the arrival of a crayon red van and its armed driver.

Collie Entragian, a former cop drummed off the force on trumped-up charges, attempts to protect his neighbors and preserve the crime scene but the violence quickly escalates out of control. As the street begins a nightmarish metamorphosis into something out of the worst of children's television and old westerns, the strengths and weaknesses of the inhabitants begin to work on all of them - Johnny Marinville, the successful author of children's books, haunted by a dissipated past and a too-vivid vision; Cynthia, the new clerk at the convenience store, whose two-toned hair and irreverent wit obscure a core of decency; Tom Billingsley, the retired veterinarian; Steve Ames, a young man drifting through life, picking up skills.

And then there's Audrey Wyler, the young widow with the autistic nephew, Seth. No one's seen her in a while and at first they scarcely notice her continuing absence amidst all the mayhem. But Audrey's particular hell has been a long time coming. There's a thing in Seth that can bend people to its will and the world to its malevolent vision and it's growing stronger.

In "Desperation," aging Johnny Marinville is only inches away from his former dissipation and still trying to reform his life without giving up his roue image; Steve Ames is the general dogsbody following Marinville on his cross-country tour; Cynthia is the plucky hitchhiker Steve picks up; Tom Billingsley is an old alcoholic veterinarian from Desperation (and why didn't Collie kill him? we wonder) and Audrey is a mining engineer who has managed to hide out from Collie.

The Carvers, also present in "The Regulators" are reversed in "Desperation" - the parents are the children and vice versa. Thus, David, the child touched by God whose role is pivotal in "Desperation," is just an early adult corpse in "The Regulators."

The child - his individual strength as well as innocence and purity of vision - are key in both books. And in "The Regulators," King adds a twist - good and evil battling it out within the same small body.

As always, King's writing zips along and no one can beat him for sheer terror - the opening chapters of "Desperation" are scarier than any of the gore which follows. But the sheer volume of horrors numbs the reader's imagination eventually. In a lesser writer's hands both books could fizzle but King's characters are human beings and we care what happens to them. With King, you never know if the good guys are going to make it until the last page is turned.

Bonanza meets Power Rangers meets Escape from New York. This is the story of Seth, an autistic child, and the evil thing which dwells within him. One day it suddenly makes the lives of everyone on Poplar street a living hell, very brief, or frequently both. I will agree that this is not the best story ever told by this author, but it is still a wild, entertaining ride. It reinforces drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs' rule about a good horror tale - "Anybody can die at any time." It all starts with a beautiful, almost poetic description of a hot summer afternoon in an ideal neighborhood in Ohio. The peace is suddenly shattered by shotgun fire as the local paperboy and somebody's pet dog are blasted by strangers in a strange van. The rest of the story is a gripping, detailed account of the happenings over the next few hours and the few people who survive. The only real complaint I have with the story is the large number of characters. I had some difficulty remembering and separating them all in the beginning, but no problems by the end (since most were dead by that point). The story is at times disgusting, always exciting, and really kept me guessing as to who would survive. The musical interludes were interesting - sort of like Roy Rogers doing acid rock.

While Desperation is a sprawling and sometimes hard-to-digest tome of King's, The Regulators represents the flipside in more ways than the obvious. The novel moves along at a pretty steady pace and allows the reader to become immersed in the story, and even though Tak is mentioned fairly often, it does not work to the detriment of the plot.

Fans of Dreamcatcher or Cujo may be pulled in by the story, which takes place over a very short span, considering the breadth of some of his other works. It takes place, ostensibly, over the course of the afternoon. A very, very, very event-filled afternoon.

At one point the book takes on an oddly Dark-Tower-ish feel, with the landscape and villains shifting and changing toward the absurd. I can't help but think the MotoKops are the Power Rangers, and thinking of them during the more violent scenes was unsettling.

Overall, though, The Regulators is one of Stephen King's better 90's works. Definitely better and more optimistic than Desperation. Good for those who are fans of Stephen King or surreal fiction, but not recommended for those just getting into his large body of works.

I almost didn't finish this book multiple times in the first half of the book. I just really didn't find the characters or concept very interesting. That changed a little in the second half of the book as you get a clearer understanding of the relationship between Seth and Tak. If you like guns and gore you might like this story, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people. If you love everything written by Stephen King, then go ahead and read this, too. Otherwise, I would pass on this book. For reference, I didn't enjoy The Talisman by King/Straub, and I found this book on par with that as far as reading enjoyment.

Our resident master of horror, Stephen King, chalked up another first with the simultaneous 1996 publication of two huge grisly page turners, "Desperation", and under the pseudonym of "the late" Richard Bachman, "The Regulators."

A juxtaposition of the two covers reveals one picture - a menacing suburban landscape overlapping a western ghost town overrun with critters. But the two novels (almost 1200 pages of late nights and disturbing dreams) are each complete in themselves.

"Desperation" is set in a tiny Nevada mining town of the same name and "The Regulators" takes place on one block of an Ohio suburb. What the two novels share is their characters and the same elemental evil force, Tak, which has escaped from a deep mine shaft.

Although King has saved himself some work here - the characters have essentially the same personalities and backgrounds in both books - neither book provides a clue to anyone's fate in the other. The books are not sequential but alternate versions, alternate lives.

In "Desperation" the characters are assembled by Collie Entragian, an outsize cop whose initially strange mix of friendliness and menace is eerily chilling. Apparently at random, he stops passing motorists and carries them off to jail. Some, however, don't make it all the way to jail, and it gradually becomes clear that Entragian has murdered everyone in town. But something weird is happening to the cop, too. He is literally and gorily falling apart.

In "The Regulators" the characters are already assembled as neighbors on Poplar Street. Their glorious summer day is shattered by the arrival of a crayon red van and its armed driver.

Collie Entragian, a former cop drummed off the force on trumped-up charges, attempts to protect his neighbors and preserve the crime scene but the violence quickly escalates out of control. As the street begins a nightmarish metamorphosis into something out of the worst of children's television and old westerns, the strengths and weaknesses of the inhabitants begin to work on all of them - Johnny Marinville, the successful author of children's books, haunted by a dissipated past and a too-vivid vision; Cynthia, the new clerk at the convenience store, whose two-toned hair and irreverent wit obscure a core of decency; Tom Billingsley, the retired veterinarian; Steve Ames, a young man drifting through life, picking up skills.

And then there's Audrey Wyler, the young widow with the autistic nephew, Seth. No one's seen her in a while and at first they scarcely notice her continuing absence amidst all the mayhem. But Audrey's particular hell has been a long time coming. There's a thing in Seth that can bend people to its will and the world to its malevolent vision and it's growing stronger.

In "Desperation," aging Johnny Marinville is only inches away from his former dissipation and still trying to reform his life without giving up his roue image; Steve Ames is the general dogsbody following Marinville on his cross-country tour; Cynthia is the plucky hitchhiker Steve picks up; Tom Billingsley is an old alcoholic veterinarian from Desperation (and why didn't Collie kill him? we wonder) and Audrey is a mining engineer who has managed to hide out from Collie.

The Carvers, also present in "The Regulators" are reversed in "Desperation" - the parents are the children and vice versa. Thus, David, the child touched by God whose role is pivotal in "Desperation," is just an early adult corpse in "The Regulators."

The child - his individual strength as well as innocence and purity of vision - are key in both books. And in "The Regulators," King adds a twist - good and evil battling it out within the same small body.

As always, King's writing zips along and no one can beat him for sheer terror - the opening chapters of "Desperation" are scarier than any of the gore which follows. But the sheer volume of horrors numbs the reader's imagination eventually. In a lesser writer's hands both books could fizzle but King's characters are human beings and we care what happens to them. With King, you never know if the good guys are going to make it until the last page is turned.

I read this after reading "Desperation", which I do recommend you read first, before this one. "Desperation" is indeed the better of the two in my opinion. While this book is very good, and it is a page turner, the fact that the charcters have the same names as the characters in "Desperation" is a bit weird as they are really not alike at all. I know it's supposed to be a sort of parallel world, or maybe it's meant to be creepy in the fact that supposedly "Two" different authors...Bachman and King, came up with novels which featured characters with the same names and with other similarities. But whatever was meant by it, the characters in "The Regulators" really are not the same people as in "Desperation". The story line is quite unique, at least, as far as anything that I have read anyway. There is also a great deal of violence and gore...characters are getting killed off in the most grusome ways. The story though isn't really as believable as "Desperation" was, even though there is a link between the two. Tak doesn't seem to be the same Tak...it seems a completely different entity altogether. But if you try to separate the two stories from one another, this is still a good read and exciting.

This is a great companion to Desperation and anyone who has read that should certainly read this. I, as some others did, did not find the use of the same characters pointless, in fact i found it a very interesting device, which helped to further sustain interest in the book and add to it another level, whilst convincing me that King is one of the most innovative writers of this generation.
Inevitably, of course, one novel will be better than the other, and i must agree with many others here when i say that yes, Desperation is perhaps a bit better than this novel. (This novel is a bit less frightening...there is a less of a sense of doom and inevitable apocalypse than there was in Desperation, and this is partly to do with the fact that we see less of Tak, we don't experience his language, which was part of the reason why the spirit was so terrifying in Desperation.) However, it is still a very powerful book, filled, as Kings books are, with raw human emotion.
This novel says many things about our growing TV culture, as well as being a rather disturbing (as i say, not altogether scary) one. There are many characters, some who we like, some who we hate. Some who we love? And sometimes its confusing, but stick with it, in the end, it's a rewarding book but sometimes sad book.

The Regulators is full of horror, action and well-thought-out characters. As to be expected of King. But ... it was miles different to any other novel of his I have read so far. The letters, statements and diary entries was a nice touch, heling you get more in touch with the leading female character.

As well as horror and action, parts of this book are very emotional. And then again, other parts made me laugh out loud.

Often people say you HAVE to read this with Desperation. That is not true. It uses most of Desperation's characters, but they're mixed around and portrayed differently than in Desperation. Although, if you were planning on reading both, i would reccommend Desperation first. Mainly because it is a bigger novel, and you really feel the atmosphere of the town of Desperation itself in it. This may make it easier to envision the fake mirage of Desperation in The Regulator.

A stunning must-read that you will put down with a warm fuzzy feeling.

This audiobook kept my keen interest, but not just for the usual reasons. One of my major interests is autism, and I was hoping against hope that Richard Bachman could write a convincing autistic character without lapsing into myths of autism, or worse... using autism as a metaphor.

For the majority of the book, Bachman does an excellent job with Seth, especially in creating a believable (at least in the context of the genre) tension between Seth and the intertwined, parasitic intelligence of Tak, whose reality-warping powers are shaped by Seth's perseverations. Speaking of these perseverations, Bachman is able to create two parallel stories... a cartoon series called "MotoKops 2200" and a 1958 western called "The Regulators," both of which Bachman created out of whole cloth, but with enough verisimilitude to feel like independent creations.

The only time Richard Bachman errs in his narration of the autistic Seth is very near the end. He makes the mistake of saying that within his inner world, Seth is not autistic. Autism is far more than a neurological condition; it is a configuration. There is no more a "normal" child within an autistic person than there is cat within them. The other mistake Bachman makes, and within the same paragraph, is to use the term "genius" as an antonym for "autistic." Autism is not a form of mental retardation. While there are some mentally retarded autistics, there are also autistic geniuses, such as Temple Grandin, Carl Sagan, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. Still, this is forgivable in light of Richard Bachman's knowledge of autism being limited to only that available in the 1980's.

What really struck me most about this book though is Bachman's absolutely sick sense of humor and misanthropic characterizations. I was howling with laughter. No description I could type could explain how truly funny this book is.

One note for the audiobook version only... Frank Muller breaks the "fourth wall" with a note to the editor. The editor did not edit this note out, for whatever reason. While this doesn't change my rating of the book, it does effect the overall flow of Muller's otherwise brilliant narration.

Having read Desperation I have had the experience of reading Stephen King and "Richard Backman". To tell you the truth I liked the writing and the stylings of Richard Backman better. He has a strange way of throwing you into a situation, unknowing of what is going on, and slowing showing you the light. I loved the way that he incorperated the hand-written notes, the TV scripts, and the diary pages all together at the end of the chapters. Explaining what has happened and what will happen in the future of the book. When you read the book it is like a surprise at the end of the chaper, I felt like it was a reward. It kept making me want to read "just one more chapter!". Aside from the writing style there is also the gore. Richard Backman gore is not as bad as Stephen King,but it is still as graphic as ever. i would love to have anyone read this book, and recommend it to anyone!!!

This is possibly the only Stephen King book I disliked. I had read almost everything he wrote until the turn of the century before I stopped and turned to other interests outside of horror. To this day I dread thinking about The Regulators since it was such a chore to read. The book was not very interesting, logical or coherent at all. The Regulators was written under King's alter ego (Richard Bachman) who managed to provide 5 wonderful short stories before cranking this one out. I believe Rage and The Long Walk are infinitely better than this 1996 offering.

The Regulators is about an evil creature (Tak) that possesses an autistic boy. It shares some ideas with another King book, Desperation, which tells the same story in a more straightforward fashion. Other than that I can't tell you what it's about because it's so weird. There are way too many characters and action sequences to try to make sense of it all. It's a surreal stream of consciousness story but not very satisfying. To give you an idea, I recall something about westerns, motorcycles and cartoon characters entering the storyline somehow. I suppose that makes sense because we are reading about what the autistic boy experiences but King is way too long on exposition. I have read a lot of strange fiction but this one just doesn't have much to hold my interest at all. The payoff wasn't there for me at the end either. I'd read Danse Macabre again before tackling this again. For the best of King, check out It, The Shining or Eyes of the Dragon. His short story collections are also excellent.

I strongly urge anybody deciding between this and its companion "Desperation" to read "Desperation" first. It is a much better novel, much scarier, much more harrowing and exciting, and the characters are given much better roles in it. "The Regulators" is like its snotty-nosed runt of a little brother; occasionally amusing, sometimes really grabbing your attention, but most frequently does really stupid things which you'd just as soon throttle him for. It's no wonder King used a pseudonym after what he's done to the fantastic cast of "Desparation"! This is still quite a gripping read, though, and as every one of his fans know, King writes a good 'shoot-out' scene--well this book is like one long shoot out, with an evil demon controlling characters thrown in to boot. Read both siblings, but make sure you read "Desperation" first!

I read Desperation and enjoyed it immensely much like i did with The Regulators also. This book is filled with suspense from page one. The book never drags in my opinion. This book though is not for the faint of heart. If you don't enjoy high body counts and gore then you will not like this book and will most likely put it down by the second chapter. But if you don't mind it at all like me you will enjoy the suspense he gives you and the twists and turns this book takes. The ending is by far the most suspenseful part. I also recommend reading Desperation first because you will probably understand it better and get a better look on what Tak is all about. The journal entries and newspaper articles are a very nice touch to the story and it lets you understand what is going on alot better also. I wish there was a part three to this but sadly there isn't. I can't choose between Desperation and Regulators because their both great but The Regulators does have the more suspenseful end to it. Although it is alot bloodier and may you even get a brief lump in your throat like i did when a tragic thing happens in the end. Keep up the good work King.