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the Dark Tower ref. :
the Dark Tower Series
the Gunslinger
Wolves of the Calla

Connects to :
Desperation

First line :
Summer's here.

Notes :
The color of the vans was:
Red
Yellow
Blue
Candy pink
Black <--- it's black!

The Regulators was King's last book under the name Richard Bachman (after previously "retiring" it with the novel Thinner). King once said that there may be another Bachman book, but his recent announcement of his retirement may suggest otherwise.

Places :
Wentworth, Ohio

Quotes :
  • “Life is so unfinished compared to books and movies! Like a fucking salad.”
  • “I've discovered you can always find something to be grateful for.”
  • “People are amazing.”
  • “Crazy does not always mean wrong.”
  • “People died hard, by and large, and when they went out, they left without much dignity… and probably without realizing they were leaving at all.”
  • “I don't think it's here at all. I don't think any of it's here, not really.”

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    DESCRIPTION
  • Written : 1996
  • The Regulators takes place in Wentworth, Ohio...
  • The Regulators is by far the most violent novel ever written by either King or Bachman...
  • Synopsis :
    The peaceful suburban life on Poplar Street in Wentworth, Ohio is shattered one fine day when four vans containing shotgun-wielding "regulators" terrorize the street's residents, cold-bloodedly killing anyone foolish enough to venture outdoors. Houses mysteriously transform into log cabins and the street now ends in what looks like a child's hand-drawn western landscape. Masterminding this sudden onslaught is the evil creature Tak, who has taken over the body of an autistic boy whose parents were killed in a drive-by shooting several months earlier.


    • REVIEW
    In 1985, 39-year-old Stephen King announced in public that his pseudonymous alter ego, Richard Bachman, was dead. (Never mind that he revived him years later to write The Regulators.) At the beginning of The Dark Half (1989), 39-year-old writer Thad Beaumont announces in public that his own pseudonym, George Stark, is dead.
    Now, King didn't want to jettison the Bachman novel, titled Machine Dreams, that was he working on. So every resident of his hometown. He can also change form and summon the help of creepy creatures, including scorpions, snakes and spiders. Though the family seems doomed, an unlikely hero emerges --11-year-old David Carver--who finds his own way to get around the Law.
    Desperation is the companion novel to King's The Regulators, which was published simultaneously under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Forget the more-or-less literary novels of recent years, like Dolores Claiborne. These books mark the return of the Stephen King of The Stand and Pet Sematary, where King's main concerns where whether good could defeat evil and how much gore could be squeezed into (or out of) one book. In each novel, the characters and situations are altered as King plays with questions of identity and form. But both really center around a new personification of evil that goes by the name of Tak. Tak wants to rule the world. Somebody has to stop him. Somebody's eyes have to pop out. Somebody's head has to explode. Now that's Stephen King!


    EDITIONS
    FIRST EDITION

    Dutton 1996.
    Written as Bachman.
    500 copy 1st edition with the signature page being a canceled check since Bachman is dead.
    Price: Signed ed. about $330

    200,000 sold shrinkwraped with Desperation/light
    Price: $52.90

    FIRST EDITION

    Dutton 1996.

    "First Trade Printing, October 1996" on copyright page.
    "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" on copyright page.

    Trade 1.25 million.
    Dust Jacket price: $24.95
    MY EDITION

    Hodder and Stoughton 1996.
    334 pages.
    Hardcover ISBN 0 340 67176 9.
    On Copyright Page: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Copyright © Stephen King, 1996.
    Author photograph: David King
    Illustration: Chris Moore

    Fiction: Horror


    DEDICATION

    Thinking of Jim Thompson and Sam Peckinpah:
    Legendary shadows.
    BOOK BREAKDOWN

    Consist of thirteen chapters
    INNER SLEEVE

    A publishing event of the first magnitude, the release of The Regulators is destined to create a firestorm of interest not only within the late Richard Bachman's cult audience but among fans of horror and supernatural suspense everywhere.

    Wentworth, Ohio: just a small friendly town where the Carver children bicker over streets and writer Johnny Marinville is about the only resident who minds his own business. And on Poplar Street it's just a normal summer's day with lawnmowers humming, Little League bats 'tinking', frisbees flying and barbecues being readied. But for young Cary Ripton on his paper round it won't be a normal day at all...
    He notices something weird about the way Audrey Wyler is standing inside the glass door - and he's always thought there was something creepy about that nephew of hers, Poplar Street's best kept secret.
    But Cary doesn't notice the chrome red van idling up the hill. Soon it will begin to roll, the killing will begin, and the regulators will arrive in force. And by the time night falls on the block, the surviving residents will find themselves in a wasteland of devastation and desperation...

    A relentless exciting Stephen King-esque tour-de-force of terror, The Regulators manuscript was found among Bachman's effects by his widow in 1994.
    ALSO KNOWN AS

    • Regulatorerne (Denmark)
    • Regulator (Germany)
    • A rendcsinálók (Hungary)
    • Stegovnici (Croatia)
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