The Regulators [Large Print] [Paperback]

Richard Bachman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

Mystery/SuspenseLarge Print Edition* A New York Times BestsellerCall him Bachman or call him King, the bard of Bangor is going to hit the charts hard and vast with this white-knuckler knockout. starred, Publishers WeeklyThe action is fierce and Bachmans imagination proves boundless. Library JournalEverything is normal on a summer day in Wentworth, Ohio the paperboy is making his rounds, frisbees are flying, barbecues are being contemplated. The only thing that doesnt quite fit is the red van idling up the hill on Poplar Street. Soon it will roll and the killing will begin. And by the time night falls, the survivors of Poplar Street will find themselves in another world. . .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Richard Bachman is really Stephen King, and The Regulators is a kind of companion novel to Desperation, which was published simultaneously. These books mark the return of the Stephen King of old; the Stephen King of The Stand and Pet Sematary, where good and evil were at war and blood and gore flowed through the pages. The companion novels center around a new personification of evil that goes by the name of Tak, unearthed by an evil mining company that's destroying the earth in the name of profit. In each, the characters and situations are altered as King plays with questions of identity and form. But the real point here is what's on Tak's mind? Does it want to "Eat pork rinds? . . . Screw some NFL cheerleaders? . . . Rule the earth?" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Why revive the Bachman byline more than a decade after Stephen King was found lurking behind it? Not for thematic reasons. This devilishly entertaining yarn of occult mayhem married to mordant social commentary is pure King and resembles little the four nonsupernatural (if science-fictional) pre-Thinner Bachmans. The theme is the horror of TV, played out through the terrors visited upon quiet Poplar Street in the postcard-perfect suburban town of Wentworth, Ohio, when a discorporeal psychic vampire settles inside an autistic boy obsessed with TV westerns and kiddie action shows and brings screen images to demented, lethal life. The long opening scene, in which characters and vehicles from the TV show Motokops 2200 (think Power Rangers) sweep down the street, spewing death by firearm, is a paragon of action-horror. The story rarely flags after that, evoking powerful tension and, at times, emotion. The premise owes a big unacknowledged debt to the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life"; echoes of earlier Kings resound often as well?the psychic boy (The Shining), a writer-hero (Misery, The Dark Half), etc. But King makes hay in this story in which anything can happen, and does, including the warping of space-time and the savage deaths of much of his large cast. The narrative itself warps fantastically, from prose set in classic typeface to handwritten journals to drawings to typewritten playscript and so on. So why the Bachman byline? Probably for fear that yet another new King in 1996 in addition to six volumes of The Green Mile and Viking's forthcoming Desperation might glut the market. Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is certain: call him Bachman or call him King, the bard of Bangor is going to hit the charts hard and vast with this white-knuckler knockout. Main selection of the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Mystery Guild and Science Fiction Book Club.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 584 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786208457
• ISBN-13: 978-0786208456
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (231 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,276,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who knew that earth demons like Chef Boyardee?, October 21, 2006

By 

Susanna (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Regulators (Mass Market Paperback)

'The Regulators' is not quite on the literary level of 'Desperation,' but that makes it more fun in a way, especially as it's less preachy. I liked that 'The Regulators' adds a little more information about the mysterious Tak. Here we see a more terribly playful, oddly fastidious, and possibly younger Tak who loves spaghetti, chocolate milk, westerns, and Cassie Stiles. And while most of the characters of 'The Regulators' are flatter than those of 'Desperation,' 'The Regulators' gives us a glimpse of what some inhabitants of Desperation might have been like before Tak possessed them, particularly Audrey and Collie who were never shown "pre-Tak" in 'Desperation.'

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Regulators, December 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Regulators (Mass Market Paperback)

A good book, but Desperation was better. I read Desperation first, and expected it to be similar, but the two books are completely different. The force of evil in both novels is the same, and the characters have the same names but different personalities, and different people survive at the end. The ending is also different, Desperation's is far better. The story involves an autistic boy named Seth who seems to have some special powers. Soon, it becomes apparent that he is infested by a being/power called Tak, which feeds on peoples' "life-force". Tak is using its limited but growing powers to turn a pleasant summer afternoon in this pleasant Ohio suburb into a living nightmare for all its residents. I think the biggest problem with this book is the characters. There are so many of them that it becomes confusing, and that the author doesn't spend much time on character development for any of them. As a result, we really don't get to "know" any of them (except maybe one), which for me is one of the things that makes a Stephen King (but apparently not Bachman) novel good. Still, it's a very amusing (and gory) story. The ending, while not quite the "epic" finish of Desperation, is still good.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alternate versions of grisly, gory, terrifying horror, August 19, 2004

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Regulators (Hardcover)

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.