The Regulators (1996)

I would have liked to give this book 2 1/2 stars, but I'll settle with the 3 rating.
It wasn't a -bad- book, but I really can't say I loved it.

I both loved and hated the fact that everything seemed to be described with excruciating detail- it made for a very interesting (if long) introduction to everything, but by the very end of the book, it became most annoying. "I get it, already, can we move along with the story?" kinda feeling.

As for the story itself, I think I will have to read the companion book, because I found far more interesting the idea of finding out about Tak (I really found the most interesting part of the book to be the bit of the story on how he came to be where he was in this book) than to know what the hell happened to the town and the survivors, or why.

Still, it made me want to keep reading despite the lack of interest in some points, if only to see how it all ended up and if more things were told about what was going on.

Not a bad read overall, but not the best I've read of King. ( )

The flip-side of Desperation, with the characters having different personalities and taking different actions. No compassion in this tales, as is Bachman's trademark. I liked it in conjunction with Desperation. Taken by itself, I don't think I'd want to read it. ( )

If read in conjunction with Desperation, bump it to 4 stars. ( )

It's been a while since I read this book. I had some pretty fond memories of it, and it's always been my favorite of two companion books that King/Bachman published together. They are alternate realities, kind of mirror images, of each other... But The Regulators is also a link to the Dark Tower universe as well.

We have the same characters (plus some new), but in different roles and with different perspectives and personas than we saw in Desperation. We have a different setting, suburban Ohio rather than BFE, Nevada, but Desperation, NV makes a cameo appearance so that Tak's presence is explained. Because Tak is again our villain here, but in a very different manner than he was in Desperation.

It seems to me that The Regulators should be read 2nd, if one is to read them back to back. It seems to make more sense that way. You'd have a fuller understanding of the capabilities of Tak, and of the characters themselves, even though their lives in each book are incredibly different. But more than that, it's always seemed to me that the characters that we meet in The Regulators are the "real" versions of the characters. These are the characters as they really exist, and the characters that we met in Desperation, Nevada are selfishly warped caricatures of themselves. With the exception of the two "outsiders" from each book, which are the same - Steve and Cynthia. These characters remain almost exactly the same. Their situations have changed, yes, but THEY have not.

The basic story is the same in each book - a group of (mostly the same) people have been chosen and attacked by an ancient evil being called "Tak", and they must fight for their survival.

Desperation has a kind of gritty, realistic feel, with fantastic elements regarding what Tak is and is capable of, and the divine intervention of God to help the group. The Regulators, however, is almost cartoonishly fantastic regarding the events that happen, but real in that there is nothing to help the group but themselves and their intuition and wits.

I love the characters in The Regulators much more than those who appear in Desperation. They are just normal people, in a friendly neighborhood, who see the insane pop into their lives and cope as best as they can. There's no sense of the resentment or anger that Desperation had, because people here aren't being called on for help by a God that was cruel enough to take everything and then some and then demand help. It's easier for me to accept chaotic craziness of random events than a divine plan of misery and loss and suffering leading up to a sacrifice of everything.

Anyway, my point is that I like these characters because not only do they feel truer to me, I can identify with their confusion and reactions as they are more similar to my what my own would be than what Desperation's characters showed.

Another plus for this book is that the statement/questions hardly made any appearances at all. Maybe this was because there wasn't that "guiding hand of God" bending people's intuitions toward a specific goal, but I much prefer when questions are just questions and statements are just statements and guesses are just guesses. :)

I always enjoy this book, but I have to say that having read more of King's books now, especially the Dark Tower books, than I had the last time I read it, I enjoyed this even more than the last time.

There will be spoilers for both The Regulators and the last Dark Tower book, so stop reading now if you don't want to be spoiled.


Last warning!


Ok. If you're still reading, so be it.

The last bit of The Regulators is a letter from a newlywed woman staying at the resort where Audrey's recreated safe place is based on. She writes to a friend of hers who is a sucker for ghost stories that as of June 19, 1986, the resort has been haunted for four years by a mother and son, who are obviously supposed to be Audrey and Seth. The letter intimates that there are alternate planes of existence, and that the letter writer does not feel that they are ghosts, but rather that they are just on a different plane. "Go then, there are other worlds than these." Right?

However, what's really creepy and weird is if you notice the date, it's 13 years to the day before the accident that almost killed King. 13 years to the day before his life is saved by Jake Chambers and Roland Deschain in The Dark Tower. So, with the alternate plane reference, and the characters dying and coming back to a different time and place, and the letter's date, we have definite links to the world of the Dark Tower.

But Stephen King had NOT had his accident when he wrote The Regulators. The accident would have been 3 years in the future.

Crazy. ( )