Before reading: Something very interesting happened in 1996...two books were released at the same time. One was Desperation by Stephen King and the other was The Regulators by Richard Bachman. These books were mirrors of each other. When you place their hardcovers side by side, they make a complete picture. I have absolutely no idea what any of this means or what I'm about to read but I'm geeking out so hard and am very excited.
After reading: The verdict is in...I liked The Regulators better than Desperation. Per usual, my King opinions don't seem to line up with the majority, so let me explain. Desperation is technically a much better book. It is textbook King, has great characters and world-building, and it is a great horror novel. Now, The Regulators, is camp. It is weird and theatrical and whimsical. It is also a quick read. For those reasons, I was more drawn to this book than the other. All that being said, they are both great and excellent companion pieces. This was like the less depressing version of Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne, books that are fine on their own but when you read them together, something special happens.
This book was just a lot of fun and I feel that if you read this one before Desperation, you might miss out on some of that fun. At the very beginning there was a fun little editors note about Bachman, explaining how this story was found after his ~death~ and why it was being published. That is just the first of many easter eggs scattered throughout this book. I think as a "constant reader" that is another reason this book can be so likable, because it is almost like a reward. You understand things on another...level...or plane. See, if you're a constant reader then you'll understand what I just said. Then, right after the editor's note, we get this children's drawing of a map. Already I was super pumped and excited to read on, I love stuff like that. Some of the connections between Desperation and TR were so small that it almost felt like a puzzle trying to catch them. Some of the ones I found were: holes being described as eyes, David having soap on him, and Johnny fighting the mountain lion. If you've read both and found some more, please share with me! My last note related to connections and easter eggs was that I liked how the two stories were directly related while at the same time being completely unrelated. I wasn't sure if any of the connections were going to be as direct as they were and I found it to be welcoming.
I had a few other thoughts while reading this that I would like to share. Like I talked about with Desperation, this will be right up your ally if you are a fan of The Stand or Under the Dome, really any ensemble town-based King story. Instead of a full town, we get one street with a lot of characters. While characters overlapped between the two stories, The Regulators had a much larger cast than Desperation did. Also, this is technically a Bachman book. There were definitely elements that felt very Bachman, such as the western elements, but I felt like this wasn't a very Bachman-y book. That being said, Desperation was much more King-y than The Regulators was. Iykyk. Also, if anyone knows Mike Flanagan, could you beg him to make a two season anthology show of these two books? Please and thank you.
Lastly, I find it really interesting that we never learn exactly what is going on and how these two stories are truly intertwined. However, the weird little ending of The Regulators gives some very big clues I think. These clues have me very excited to see if and how this is related to the Dark Tower series. Speaking of...
Next up is the next book in the Dark Tower series! Yay!
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