Reading Desperation and The Regulators back to back is a fun experience, and once again ties in with Dark Tower/Talisman ideas of echoes, twinners and the like. Ka, man, it’s all Ka. Of the two books, The Regulators is the darker and more violent of the two, which is saying something because both books lean into making things bloody and frightening.

In this Other World Than These, Tak escaped the China Pit in Desperation, latching onto a passing family, specifically a young autistic child named Seth. And in a riff on the Twilight Zone episode, It’s a Good Life, Tak/Seth begins to make everyone’s life on his street a nightmare. Futuristic vehicles and characters sprung from Seth’s favourite cartoon, MotoKops and his love for westerns begin to change the town, and the characters, with their weapons, are slaughtering the street’s residents and visitors.

Familiar character names from those we encountered in Desperation appear here… echoes, ya kennit? Twinners. They are variations of those we’ve encountered previously, and tthough Ka is a wheel, things may not play out the same for these iterations of people I got to know in Desperation.

Seth struggles to protect his Aunt, while Tak abuses her, but is unable, because of the child’s body, to commit all the atrocites upon her that he wishes. But Tak does want to grow, spread and kill. Will Seth be able to stop him?

Will the survivors of Poplar Street be able to make it through the ongoing assault of a corrupted child’s imagination? And how will this story resolve itself?

I can assure you, it will be violent.

When Tak takes possession of Seth, it’s truly unnerving -the way King describes Tak moving through the house, Seth is floating, his toes hanging down and dragging on the floor… It’s creepy.

Reading these books (almost) back-to-back really lets you enjoy the way King tells his tales, and the way he plans with the similar names and characters, making you think you know how things will play out, and knowing things have to work a certain way, and then messing with you completely.

The climax is absolutely brutal and heartbreaking, and King as Bachman does not shy away from the violence of what is happening on Poplar Street.

Of the two, I prefer Desperation; it feels a little more epic, but I do like the horror and violence in The Regulators and how it ties into the imagination of a child.

A solid and entertaining pair of novels that complement and echo one another.