Regulator (novel)
Regulator (original title The Regulators ) is a novel by Stephen King published in 1996 . He published the novel under his pen name Richard Bachman . At the same time he published the novel Desperation , in which he wrote the same story from a different point of view. The two novels complement each other, but the plots also differ.
action
It's a quiet summer afternoon on Wenthworth, Ohio's Poplar Street . The writer Marinville, the Carver family and Audrey Wyler, among others, live on this street. But without warning, futuristic delivery vans appear in the small town and shoot everything and everyone who approaches them. Panic breaks out, but the massacre is just the beginning. Poplar Street is transformed into a western backdrop and the heroes of the fictional children's series MotoKops 2200 transform the small town into a place of horror.
The survivors manage to escape the massacre, but they find themselves in a strange place. Poplar Street and its immediate surroundings seem to have been transported into another reality and look as if they were painted by a toddler. Deadly dangers lurk everywhere in the form of strange monsters and you have to survive further attacks by the characters from MotoKops 2200, The Regulators (a fictional Western) and Bonanza .
Through flashbacks, often in the form of Audrey Wyler's diary entries, the reader gradually realizes that an ancient, supernatural being named Tak is responsible for what happened, who shares the body with Audrey's autistic nephew Seth. While visiting an old silver mine, the latter made contact with Seth and settled in his mind. Now they enjoy torturing the residents of Poplar Street in an oversized and surreal children's game.
The highly intelligent Seth, trapped in his autistic body, succeeds in sealing off part of his mind from Tak and, with Audrey's help, to whom he establishes telepathic contact, to fight the demon. The energy struggle culminates in a metaphorical poker game between Tak and Seth, which the boy decides for himself after his death. Stripped of his host, Tak flees, but not without threatening his vengeance on the survivors.
Literature and web links
- Stephen King (Richard Bachman), Regulator , Ullstein, 2002, ISBN 3548255019
- Detailed table of contents in KingWiki