Date: Fri 25-Oct-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Illustration: C

Location: A11

Quick Words:

Halloween-books-Bachman-King

Full Text:

(Bachman & King books rev'd for Halloween cover, 10/25/96)

Spine-Tinglers To Give You Halloween Nightmares

(with book covers)

BY KIM J. HARMON

"When we hurt. We give off something when we hurt, something it... it licks

up, like ice cream. And when we die, that's even better. It doesn't have to

lick then. It can just gobble the stuff down whole."

B Y K IM J. H ARMON

Tak is one of the unformed, a demon of the earth, millions of years old and

living off the suffering and the misery and the killing of those who live

above.

And it is the nightmarish creation of author Stephen King.

It is a creature like none other King has imagined - worse than the

spider-thing in It , worse than the dead things in Pet Sematary , worse than

the grayish blob in Gray Matter and the monstrous rat thing in Night Shift ,

even worse than the vampires in Salem's Lot - and it walks across the pages of

two books just released in hardcover from Penguin Books USA.

The Regulators

By Richard Bachman ;

Desperation

By Stephen King

Richard Bachman, ironically, has risen from the dead just ten years after he

was killed (chopped up into little pieces and dropped into a nice, steaming

acid bath no doubt) following the publication of Thinner . He now joins his

alter ego, King, in an almost collaborative effort of sister books that in

some ways do - and in some ways don't - mesh together.

The books are held together (and not just by the art on both covers which,

when placed side by side, creates a horrific mural of real-life America on the

very edge of Hell) by the common thread of the evil demon, Tak, which has

risen from the fetid depths of an old, abandoned mine where nearly a century

before, dozens of Chinese prisoners were left to die in a cave-in.

It is a bold move from horror's most prolific writer - a man who not only

wrote these two novels but this year also wrote a six-part serial called The

Green Mile and the screenplay for a six-hour television mini-series based on

The Shining (King reportedly hated the early 70s film version so much he

wanted a screen version done again) - but a bold move that works better than

almost anything he has done in his career until now.

The Regulators (474 pages, $24.95 ): The premise for this novel - beware -

sounds like the worst nightmare of any right-thinking American parent.

Characters from an animated television show called "Motokops 2200" explode

from the mind of an autistic boy, Seth Garin, and create some serious havoc on

Poplar Street in suburban Columbus, Ohio.

It is all the doing of the evil thing, Tak, though. Seth has become the

unwilling vessel of the demon, picking it up after the Garin family, on a ride

through Nevada, stop off to see the China Pit and Rattlesnake #2, a mine near

Desperation.

The only thing Seth can understand in life is the Motokops and any western,

but mostly his favorite western starring Rory Calhoun and the Regulators. Tak

sees these characters in Seth's mind and meshes that reality with the reality

on Poplar Street and whether or not it is for Tak's enjoyment, all Hell breaks

loose.

And it all breaks loose from 3:45 to 5:18 pm. King does a brilliant job of

capturing a moment frozen in time using his typical King imagery (like seeing

Seth Garin naked except for his spaghetti-stained Motokops Underoos) with the

leaner Bachman style or writing.

Tak unleashes the Motokops and the Regulators (who generally were the good

guys... except on Poplar Street) on the neighborhood and the people left

trapped in their homes not only fight to understand what is happening, but

fight to survive.

The battle, though, that makes The Regulators so emotionally thrilling, so

draining, is the one between Seth Garin and Tak. King (or Bachman, I should

say) shows us a frightened young boy who is not only imprisoned in his own

mind by his autism, but imprisoned by a demon, who shows unbelievable courage

and will to stop the madness.

There is a strong emotional finish, you might guess... very strong. The love

the kid had for his aunt and the sadness we feel for him is almost

overwhelming and don't be surprised if (like me) you get all choked up and

teary eyed.

Don't think this is going to be traditional horror type stuff, though. The

Regulators is weird and surreal in the way the Dark Tower novels were surreal

and the way King's story The Langoliers was weird.

But it is brilliant. The single-best novel I have read from King since Salem's

Lot .

D esperation (690 pages, $24.95): Off the long, lonesome Highway 50 in Nevada

(the loneliest highway in the world) lies the small town of Desperation, home

to just 200 souls and Tak, one of the unformed.

Just outside of Desperation is the China Pit mine, where a local mining

company is leaching minerals out of an already dried up mine. In the process,

the company uncovers a mine it calls Rattlesnake #2, where, about 100 years

before, some Chinese prisoners were left to die after a mine collapse.

Rattlesnake #2 is opened and something - Tak - comes out.

Tak slips into the body of Desperation deputy sheriff Collie Entragian, who

wigs out and kills just about everyone in town. In the middle of this process

he, for some inexplicable reason, jails several people rather than kills them.

These are the people who will attempt to either kill Tak or send it back into

the bowels of Rattlesnake #2.

Most of the characters from The Regulators are here - the Carvers, Tom

Billingsley, the Jacksons, Audrey Wyler, Steve Ames and Cynthia, and John

Marinville.

It is David Carver (a kid in this novel, an adult in The Regulators ) who

becomes Tak's nemesis - because David has been touched by God and is a conduit

through which God provides some protection against the demon.

Mi him en tow . In the language of the unformed, it means "Our God is strong,

our God is with us." While this works to command the creatures under Tak's

power, it also serves as an ideal of strength for the several people stuck in

Desperation in a blinding sandstorm trying to battle a demon who is more than

a million years old.

Good versus evil.

It worked brilliantly in The Stand and it works even better here, in

Desperation.

Why They Work, For Me

It is the isolation, the feeling of abandonment and of being closed off from

the rest of the world, which gives the thread of fear in The Regulators and

Desperation such a violent pluck that your own nerve endings are jangling like

a really deep bass chord on an electric guitar.

In The Regulators , everything happens on one street in a big suburban city in

Ohio, but Tak has made that one street the only thing there is. As if Poplar

Street was on another planet altogether.

And in Desperation , the small town in Nevada can not be any more isolated

from the rest of the universe than it already is. A cop going berserk in a

town of 200 is not out of the realm of possibility, which is scary enough, but

throw in an otherworld demon trying to remake reality and the fear gets that

much worse.

Isolation. It worked so well in Afterage by Yvonne Navarro, Brujo by William

Relling, Wolfbane by Al Sarrantonio, and in Stephen King stories like The

Mist, Langoliers and Salem's Lot.

For King fans who might have been disillusioned with recent novels like Rose

Madder , Insomnia , Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne , which didn't come

close to achieving what King has been able to achieve in his earlier work (

Insomnia was just plain dull), The Regulators and Desperation are nothing less

than brilliant.

NOTE: The Regulators and Desperation are available (alone or as a set, with a

nightlight) at The Book Review/Cup & Chaucer Cafe in Sand Hill Plaza, Route 25

in Newtown. Call 426-1711.