Reviews

The Regulators by Richard Bachman

wanderlustsleeping's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.25

Hooked me right away, and near the end my heart felt so so sad. I felt the same way when I read Cujo! The talent of people who can make horror frightening, but have your heart broken all in one story.

King writes just so vividly!

daisymaytwizell's review against another edition

4.0

Starts off absolutely bewildering, but the ancillary information helps you piece it together in quite a satisfying way as the story unfolds. Reminds me of Carrie's epistolary elements. The premise itself reminds me of Under the Dome, as a cross section of a population (in this case a neighbourhood block) struggles to survive a traumatic situation.

And of course, Tak reminds me heavily of the creature in The Outsider. And though I haven't read IT, Tak is pretty explicitly a Deadlights-esque being too.

Quite heavy on gore - it reminds me of a B-movie slasher story, which for me was an absolute blast, but if you want something more than creative and pacy kills than maybe I wouldn't recommend. The writing was so good though, there were multiple deaths and injuries that made me physically recoil a little.

Some notes: one character is actively racist, and is considered a piece of shit for it by everyone else, but I wouldn't say race and diversity is handled particularly sensitively elsewhere in the book either. As ever, sex has a weird tone in this book, and for women especially has a mostly unacknowledged but recurrent link to violence. Also also, the worst trigger warning for this book is its handling of an autistic character. Seth is really interesting, and most of his

non-Tak

behaviour seems accurate for a child with quite severe autism, but some of the language around it is awful. The novel outright states that there is a "normal" Seth beneath his condition, which pairs horribly with

Seth's general state of being trapped in his own body while Tak controls it.

Very derogatory presentation (though it's worth noting that none of Seth's caregivers feel that way about him, and even though they're excited to see him exhibit more neurological behaviour, they all love and care for him fiercely at every point).

All in all, I had a really good time reading this book and would recommend it, but with some significant content warnings on language.

daisy2134's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

scottneumann's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

devindevindevin's review against another edition

2.0

i'm reading every king book related to the dark tower. this was pretty meh.

topdragon's review against another edition

2.0

I read more than 150 novels each year and have read most of King's stuff. Obviously, with so much output from one writer, there are bound to be hits and misses. This one was a miss, in my opinion but there is still enough here to make it worth the read.

I had already read Desperation, the companion book to this volume, and came away with the feeling that I had just experienced a pretty good King novel. It also was far from his best but I enjoyed it nonetheless. So, naturally, I turned to this book, The Regulators, hoping for a similar experience. Stephen King is well known for marketing gimmickry, pushing the envelope in the publishing business. At first it was through using brand names without permission. Then it was the alternate ego, Richard Bachman, followed by the serial novel (Green Mile) and now it is a "dual novel." Frankly, I don't think it worked this time. I just couldn't get the parallel between the two books/settings. Same names but different people and places. What was the point? Really, they are two seperate books.

In this novel, King definitely displays his famous talent for scene setting. The opening chapter is one of the best I've read, setting the stage for the coming horror. The plot was also pretty good, although the evil 'Tak' seemed somewhat ordinary. King uses a great mechanism to deliver the horror this time. The manifestation of the mind of a small autistic boy. The horrors come in the form of all of those things that frighten young children and, consequently, frighten us. The text is sprinkled throughout with other tidbits as well that help to tell the story: letters, postcards, diary entries, even a script. Another King tool to attack from all directions.

But somehow, it didn't all flow well together. There were so many characters that I lost track of who was who and as they started to die off, I found myself not caring too much who was left. Perhaps I was a victim of having read Desperation first. I guess I was expecting the same characters to survive.

Overall, a middle-of the road King entry. King purists will want to read this one but King samplers should pass.

castitomas's review against another edition

1.0

DNF

Me es imposible adentrarme en el libro, a veces siento que King quiere hacerme dejar de leer con todo lo que describe y que realmente ni hace falta. No puedo recomendarlo, personalmente se me hizo muy difícil sentir algo por los personajes.

lesserjoke's review against another edition

1.0

Too many characters with not enough characterization, which made it hard to keep track of them or even care when they kept getting gunned down. It doesn't help that most of the characters share names -- but not much else -- with people in Stephen King's other book Desperation, which theoretically tells a parallel story but is largely independent. As a result, this novel felt more like King was playing with action figures than using characters to drive a cohesive story (which is ironically appropriate, I suppose). His depiction of a character with autism was also wildly unrealistic and offensive, in a way that suggests the author did no research on the subject before writing. So really, not much to recommend here at all.

kentclark's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

marijnleest's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0