Stephen King Box Set: Desperation, The Regulators [Box set] [Paperback]

Stephen King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997

New! Titles include Desperation by Stephen King and The Regulators by Richard Bachman.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A notice to those who feel that Stephen King has lost his magic touch: Desperation is the genuine goods. The ensemble cast of ordinary Americans thrown together by chance, including a disgruntled alcoholic writer and a child who is wise beyond his years, may be a bit too familiar. But the nearly deserted Nevada mining town with an enormous haunted mine pit and an abandoned movie theater where the survivors hang out makes for a striking battleground, and the grisly action rarely flags. Best of all, though, are the characters of "Tak," the ancient, body-hopping evil who emerges from the mine, and of "God"--whom the New York Times describes as "the edgiest creation in Desperation. Remote, isolated, ironic, shrouded behind disguises, perhaps 'another legendary shadow,' this deity forms a sly foil, and an icy mirror, to Tak."

In The Regulators, an evil creature called "Tak" uses the imagination of an autistic boy to shift a residential street in small-town Ohio into a world so bizarre and brutal that only a child could think it up. It's as two-dimensional and gaudy as a kid's comic book, but for this reviewer, The Regulators is a gripping adventure tale about what happens when a mind fixated on TV (especially old Westerns and a cartoon called MotoKops 2200) runs amok. As Michael Collins writes in Necrofile, "[Stephen] King offers his readers a glimpse of the true evil of popular culture ... which has no design or intent, only an empty need to sustain itself. King is, I think, about the canniest observer of what America is, and that he generally writes horror ought to give us pause from time to time." --Fiona Webster

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Signet; First edition thus. edition (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451935659
• ISBN-13: 978-0451935656
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 2.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,817,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Idea; Gripping Stories, February 27, 2002

By 

Gordon Hackman "absent minded prof" (Buffalo Grove, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stephen King Box Set: Desperation, The Regulators (Paperback)

These two novels by Steven King (one under his Richard Bachman psuedonym) are based on an interesting idea. Take the same set of characters, and put them into two completely different and totally unrelated stories. Not only are the human characters the same, the evil being they must fight, Tak, is the same in both stories, and both stories involve the town of Desperation, Nevada and the suburb of Wentworth, Ohio to a greater or lesser degree. By unrelated here, I mean one story is not the continuation of the other, it's as if they happen in parallel universes.

In Desperation, the humans are trapped in a small western mining town in Nevada where Tak has taken over and killed off most of the town's residents. Tak has apparently selected a random group of humans to keep alive to be used for it's own purposes, but it is unaware of the fact that one of these humans, a young boy, has a connection to a higher power than itself (i.e. God) which is intent on thwarting it's plans. In the story, King attempts to wrestle with serious theological questions, particularly with the problem of evil and suffering. While not overly profound, the book does have some moral and spiritual depth to it and is surprisingly Christian friendly.

In the Regulators, the creature Tak takes over the mind of a young autistic boy, and then uses images in his mind, gleaned from old western movies and Saturday morning cartoons to terrorize and demolish a suburban Ohio neighborhood. While The Regulators could be seen as a commentary on the effects of popular media and television, there really isn't the same kind of pointed moral and spiritual questioning that is found in Desperation. It's just an entertaining story.

Though I think Desperation is the better of the two books, I enjoyed them both, and found them both to be gripping reads. King really is a good story teller with some interesting ideas, and is also good at creating a sense of place and mood. He is also good at creating interesting, realistic, sympathetic characters. Both stories are pretty violent, especially The Regulators, and some readers may be put off by a fair amount of bad, sometimes sacreligious language and crude subject matter. The stories are still interesting and enjoyable though, and Desperation especially carries a sense of moral weightiness that, for me, helps to define good writing. If you read one and enjoy it, you'll probably want to read the other one as well to see how the different characters fair in both stories.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short but to the point!, May 12, 2006

By 

TytianaCS "Life Is What You Make It So Learn ... (Freeport, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stephen King Box Set: Desperation, The Regulators (Paperback)

I read both of these books back during the late 1990's, back to back. Both books were incredible to me!! I enjoyed "Desperation" but once I read "The Regulators", Stephen King had me hooked as a fan for life!!

I know that they are showing a movie version of "Desperation" very soon on television and I do look forward to how they have adapted it but nothing could ever compare to the two novels! Excellent works from Mr. King. I recommend then strongly.

Enjoy!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Same characters, different styles, May 12, 2005

By 

H. Dennis (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stephen King Box Set: Desperation, The Regulators (Paperback)

Desperation was the first King book I read, way back in elementary school. He quickly became my favorite. Come college, I decided to go back to the author I'd been neglecting and read the last few books (for there are only a few I hadn't read-- I'd kept up with new ones and had gotten most the old ones in.) One of these was The Regulators.
Same characters, but the plot and writing style are very different. I preferred Desparation of the two books, but The Regulators is very entertaining. I suppose I always preferred works written as King rather than as Bachman--so maybe it's the style and how King chooses to present each of thw two.

Definately worth reading and entertaining to read side by side (reread Desparation after T.R. and it was a fun endeavor!)