Rating: 
Summary: Masterful
Review: Richard Bachman is Stephen King's other pen name, which is the name he assumed when writing stories with more horror and gory. In this story Tak a demon takes up residence in an autistic boy and how the demon used the boy's view of the world to distort reality for the people staying in Poplar Street. With the distortion, Poplar Street was turned into a cowboy set ala Ponderosa of Bonanza. This western set was populated with cowboy and futuristic cartoon characters. The mayhem was out of the world when these characters start shooting and killing the poor folks like ducks in a shooting gallery. The story ends with a dramatic climax that rates as one of the better of King's novels.Highly recommended and not to be missed SK's fans.
Rating: 
Summary: So-So
Review: Not one of The King's best efforts, although there is plenty of comic book violence and chaos. Get a fresher novel like "Night of the Beast" by Harry Shannon, or the upcoming "The Rising" by Brian Keene if you want a terrific pulp story.This one feels a bit like an expanded piece of short fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good King effort
Review: I read this book after reading Desperation and was glad I did. Although this is an entertaining thriller that holds your attention, it is the lesser of the two books. This book reads like an interesting short story expanded to a full length book. I'm surprised it hasn't been commissioned to become a t.v. movie or feature film, because the writing style used here by King certainly lends itself to translation to either of those genres. I recommend it as an entertaining read, but if possible read Desperation first.
Rating: 
Summary: awesome book !!! REGULATORS BY RICHARD BACHMAN
Review: This book that I am reading is very very good. It is a little confusing but you will eventually understand it when everything comes out. Richard Bachman calls the book the regulators or, most people know him as Stephen King. The book is very graphic and "on the edge of your seat" kind of book. When I put it down I just want to pick it back up and start reading it again. I am in the process of reading it twice so that I can get every little detail of this awesome book. If you are a person who likes the other Stephen king books or just loves crazy action books then I recommend this book to you.
Rating:
Summary: Strange
Review: I admit it's a little strange...strange enough to keep you reading to see what's going to happen next.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book
Review: Going against what other reviewers have said, I think The Regulators is slightly better than its companion, Desperation. A page turner till the end, The Regulators may not be King's best book, but still is a thriller. Although he did not go into as much depth with the characters' pasts as he usually does. All in all, a great book. I would recommend it to anyone in the mood for a good horror story.
Rating:
Summary: Don't take it for more than it is
Review: There's a substantial danger that some readers could misinterpret what Stephen King is trying to do in this book. The so-called "companion volume," Desperation, is undoubtedly among the three best books King has EVER written, and stands as a marvelous and deep analysis of man's relationship to an apparently cruel God. This book is a Saturday morning cartoon show run amok. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no real moral to this story, and I don't think you'll have much success finding anything lying beneath the surface. And you know what--that's not such a bad thing. Now, obviously there are some problems with the book. For starters, using the Bachman pseudonym was a mistake. This is not a Richard Bachman book. In all five of his previous publications, King followed some pretty strict rules about the way Bachman wrote. There was a single protagonist, faced with overwhelming opposition, who generally doesn't come out of his conflict alive or psychologically intact. None of those rules apply here. In fact, apart from some tonal and organizational qualities (the voice of the writing and the chapter organization), this book bears absolutely no relationship to anything Richard Bachman ever wrote before, and King should be ashamed for throwing out the integrity of his own creation for the sake of this concurrent publication trick he was hoping to pull. The book itself is much more reminiscent of a previous Stephen King work--The Mist--than anything in the Bachman library. Truth be told, this is the novel that The Mist should have been. A group of people are isolated together against an unexplained, malevolent force and those people are then compelled to work together to fix the situation. There are subtle differences, yes, but the essential structure and feel of the two stories are the same, and this book is much better executed. Even with as little "deep" content as this book has, you probably won't be able to stop turning the pages until you finish it. The pacing, plot, and characterization are all well done (though the characters are admittedly a little thin, but who cares in a fantasy oat opera from the planet death?), and there's probably no better novel in the genre with which to pass a few hours. While I wouldn't recommend it for the squeamish, this story certainly represents one pole of Stephen King at his best--solid storytelling in a vivid environment. Any fan of Stephen King, or of the horror, suspense, and fantasy/sci-fi genres should be well pleased.
Rating:
Summary: Great sister novel to Desperation
Review: This is a great companion to Desperation and anyone who has read that should certainly read this. I, as some others did, did not find the use of the same characters pointless, in fact i found it a very interesting device, which helped to further sustain interest in the book and add to it another level, whilst convincing me that King is one of the most innovative writers of this generation. Inevitably, of course, one novel will be better than the other, and i must agree with many others here when i say that yes, Desperation is perhaps a bit better than this novel. (This novel is a bit less frightening...there is a less of a sense of doom and inevitable apocalypse than there was in Desperation, and this is partly to do with the fact that we see less of Tak, we don't experience his language, which was part of the reason why the spirit was so terrifying in Desperation.) However, it is still a very powerful book, filled, as Kings books are, with raw human emotion. This novel says many things about our growing TV culture, as well as being a rather disturbing (as i say, not altogether scary) one. There are many characters, some who we like, some who we hate. Some who we love? And sometimes its confusing, but stick with it, in the end, it's a rewarding book but sometimes sad book.
Rating:
Summary: Regulate this....!!!
Review: Imagine a small, quiet, suburban American street going about its business. Now imagine it as five vans drive through it shooting it to pieces in a total violent bloodfest. This is how the terror on Poplar Street begins for the many residents of this unfortunate street. The story is told in a real time situation with the events of the residents of Poplar street and past events through diary/letter entries which lead up to the reason behind the terror. The only trouble I had with this book was remembering the number of characters that live on the street. But Bachman provides a quick remedy for this by killing a lot of them off through the most violent of means. Not one for the queasy as there is a lot of blood, gore and brain-matter in the majority of death scenes. RECOMMENDED TO ALL!!!
Rating:
Summary: Audio-book was entertaining but gruesome
Review: I enjoyed listening to the audio version of this book -- never got bored -- but found it a bit gory and predictable. I'm not squeamish but found some of the bloodiness excessive, as if it were tacked on to distract from shallow character development and a limited plot. Definitely grim. And listening to careful descriptions of e.g. exploding eyeballs is worse than reading them. Characters tend toward black or white/good or evil. There are times when you can say to yourself, "This one's going to get it." And times when I'd have liked the story to speed up a little, which I could do if I were reading it. It was quite hard to remember who was who in the beginning -- many characters. (This improved as some got killed off...) Some great moments, though. And I grew to like the reading of Kate Nelligan, the narrator.
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