books...

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                      "REGULATORS" by RICHARD BACHMAN
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original release by Dutton, Penguin, New York, 1996

german release by Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1996


"REGULATORS" is the 5th and last book by  RICHARD BACHMAN, the last book because
he died back in 1985, at least the man behind this  pseudonym, STEPHEN KING, the
master of horror itself, claims this.

Funny enough to see him, writing a story around this book as well, because it is
long time known that RICHARD BACHMAN is just  another nickname  for KING, and it
goes on with the fact that "REGULATORS" is the BACHMAN (?) version  of a book by
KING, called "DESPERATION". The strange thing is that  both books using the same
places and ideas but are different too. Cruel idea to write two  books about the
same thing in two different styles, esp by one and the same author...

Unfortunately I haven't red the other book up to now and so I can  just give you
some informations about "REGULATORS" itself.
"REGULATORS" is  the first book under the BACHMAN pseudonym about a  monster and
so it is some kind of premiere and interesting much  more. The other  books just
feature crazy stories about a fucked up future, strange  peoples, curses  and so
on. The monster business was only done under the KING label so far.

The book  is about  the people, living together in a street, in a  small city in
Ohio, called Wentworth. They're normal  people, you can find  the young american
guys, a black family, a alcoholic with his wife which  is going to  have strange
sex with another one, an old hippie, an old vet, an ex-policeman and so on.

It is summer and the paperboy is going to spread the "Shopper", is driving along
the street  with his  bike, is  seeing some young  girls (and thinks  some stuff
about them, hehe) and talking some words to the inhabitants of the street...
untill... untill strange and futuristic styled vans are  coming, slowly. They're
driving along the street, stopping and BAMMM they're going to kill  the paperboy
at first and at next a dog.

Now the  things  are running  out of control, no one knows those  strange people
with their  futuristic  killer cars, and no one is  able to  call the  police or
anyone else. All things are going mad, they're loosing the contact  to the other
parts of the city and after short time they're alone with those killers and just
their neighbors from the street.

They don't have a clue from where they're coming from, who has sent them and why
they're killing harmless people. It is going harder and harder, because  they're
firing  with grenades  or something, not  only guns. Several inhabitants  of the
street are dying a agonizing dead, untill they're starting to find  out what the
hell is going on there.

All belongs to  the autistic child, called Seth, who's  living in the  street as
well. Because Seth is has made  a horrible experience as he once met an old mine
in a city  called  Desperation. There he met  a monster called  Tak and  Tak has
taken Seth's body to  escape from the  mine. Now Tak is  using Seth's  primitive
ideas to  express his cruelties. He's going to  create a  new world, filled with
childish looking creatures and surroundings, but filled with pure horror as well
and the  people of  the Poplar Street in  Wentworth are  just  figures  in Tak's
strange and cruel fantasies.

I have to cut here... the book isn't easy to read. The  other BACHMAN books were
written much more  in line. This book is  filled with  flashbacks, stories about
the strange vans, called  Power Wagons  from the  TV series "MotoKops", too long
entries of the diary of one of inhabitants of the street, parts of the TV series
called "Bonanza" and so on. This blows the book up to 45o pages and this is very
unusual for BACHMAN books.
Therefore KING  matched it to give this book the typical  BACHMAN style. Several
passages are written in a very vulgar way, especially all the sexistic stuff.
Furthermore the injuries of the people and their dying is explained in very long
sentences and not for sensitive readers.

Hum... what can I say... not as good as his former  books, no question. It isn't
a bad book at all, but a bit too much mixed with the current  storie and all the
flashbacks and so on. This reminds  more to the  original KING  style and not to
the straight style of the BACHMAN books, where the apocalypse is  coming over in
big steps.
It is more  a book for fans, BACHMAN beginners really should focus  on his other
works. Fans of more realistic  stories shouldn't  buy it as  well. Sometimes the
storie of this book seems to be too much dragged alone by the hairs.

End of transmission...

                                                                moondog / .tSCc.
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