The Regulators by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
This is the second book in a miniseries of books which came out, if memory serves correctly, about 1996 or 1997. I remember them being displayed together, even though they are technically supposed to be by two different authors, Stephen King and Richard Bachman. By now, of course, we all know that those two authors are, in fact, one and the same.
The entire story is supposed to take place in significantly less than two hours. Strange to think, since the book is the better part of 500 pages in length. Yet, everything in the book is supposed to transpire from about 3:45 until 5:15 or so on a summer afternoon. So believe me when I say that everything in this book is packed pretty tightly.
Rereading this one, it felt a whole lot bloodier than Desperation. In fact, it felt more violent and gruesome than many, if not most, of King's works, which is really saying something. But this one, it can be argued, is more disturbing than most of his works. The reader will find incestual thoughts and cravings. Body parts, including eyes and someone's entire head, exploding. Close family members watching their loved ones die in the most gruesome manner. It just really seemed like the details are gorier - and most plentiful - in this book than mot of his other works.
The characters are not exactly the same as in Desperation, although they are similar and share the same names. Indeed, while this story takes place in suburban Ohio, the Tak creature is able to lay down a sort of theatrical Old Western desert, although this is described more as a screen and not entirely real. Yet, it is real enough certainly to disorient, and in some cases actually physically harm the characters who get stuck in this nightmare.
There are other differences, as well. While the town of Desperation is mentioned fairly prominently throughout this book, and a part of this story is intimately related to Desperation, there are differences between the two books. The first one revealed Tak to have a purely physical form, while it seems more like thoughts in this novel. Also, Tak is described as being these tiny reddish lights, almost like a swarm of insects, but able to penetrate physically into people in order to control their thoughts. It can also control the muscle movements of people close enough to be within it's range, although it does not quite have as much control over real animals as the version of Tak in Desperation.
Admittedly, not one of my favorite works by King. It is still solid writing, with decent characters and such. Johnny Marinville is almost as engaging and absorbing in this book as he was in Desperation, which was fun to read. He is a writer, yet he is well past his peak. Also, haunted by his own involvement in the war in Vietnam many years earlier. Yet, he is now struggling as a writer, and we get the impression that he is half-convinced that his acclaimed writing career is already at an end.
However, it is not as good as Desperation, either. And it felt like this one was not quite as good as many of his other works, in my humble opinion.
Let me elaborate on why I feel like that in this book review.
Before I do, however, let me give the usual warnings to stop reading if you intend to read this book, because there will be spoilers ahead.
SPOILER ALERT
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SPOILER ALERT
Okay, so by now if you are still reading this, I have to imagine that you either are familiar with this story already, or perhaps you do not mind the spoilers. Please just don't say that you were not given advanced warning.
As mentioned earlier, this book is more filled with gore than Desperation, or even most other King/Bachman works. I had read this one, along with Desperation, many years ago. Yet, I apparently forgot quite a bit, because it kind of shocked me just how graphic the violence was. How heavily King relied on gore in this particular book. If you choose to read this one, you will read about eyeballs exploding, heads exploding, and heads being blown off in rather shocking detail. Even as a fan of King, a "Constant Reader," it was surprising to me, the extent of the gore with this particular book.
I really liked the opening of this book. It is very, very different from the opening of Desperation, which I, as a Constant Reader, feel was one of the scariest openings for any King book. But this one starts off very differently. He describes the pleasantries of summertime in a suburban Ohio town in the late 20th century. It reminded me of when he did largely the same thing for the autumn to open up Needful Things, which was the very first Stephen King book that I read, and which also happened to make me a fan, or a Constant Reader.
Then suddenly, there are these bright, colorful, and out of place vehicles which resemble toys to the local residents. Nobody really thinks too much of it, at least not at first. But then, the window of the first vehicle rolls down, and out comes a gun just before an apparent mass shooting. Just as the locals are beginning to recover from the shock of this, more vehicles arrive, also resembling toys. More shooting, more chaos. The locals - and really, it's just the main characters of the book, all residents of one street in this otherwise typical suburban Ohio town - notice something strange. Nobody from neighboring streets seems to be around. No police or ambulance sirens to be heard. Somehow, they are completely isolated from the outside world. This makes this book feel similar to it's companion book, Desperation.
Indeed, the story is similar to Desperation, but again, with important differences. Tak manages to construct a makeshift desert screen, if you will. The characters find that this has some measure reality to it, but only within certain limits. The weaker the Tak gets, the more vulnerable the illusion of the desert, and Tak's control, gets.
The reason for the toy vehicles and the projection western desert scene is because this is on the mind of both Tak and a little boy with autism. Tak has, for all intents and purposes, fused and become one with the autistic boy. Thus, he has special powers beyond human understanding, and is able to make his favorite cartoons and western movies come to life, at least to a certain extent. Except that Tak has bad intentions, hence the horror story.
One thing that I noticed was that this book felt quite a bit more violent and dark than Desperation. The descriptions feel gorier, which is saying something. Frankly, it made my personal experience of reading this book less enjoyable, if anything.
Still, this is a Stephen King book. So the characters are rich, and it is well-written.
Highly recommended.
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