King, Stephen Easter Egg - Name Game

This was done deliberately, as King's pseudonym Richard Bachman was resurrected for the book The Regulators. I don't really think it should qualify as an Egg.

They are fighting TAK in both books. In Desperation Tak uses different charachters bodies as a host for his spirit and in the Regulators he uses an autistic boy as a host and controls the cars (power Wagons)and the changes in landscape through him.

you're probably right, i haven't read the book in about 2 years. but thank you for clearing my mind with the "power wagons", i've been trying to remember that name ever since i read this egg.

For what it's worth, Stephen King's wife's name is Tabitha King. Anyone know her middle initial? Is she TAK?

Have you also notice that the back of the regulators is an insite into Desperation and vice verser. Also I recieved both of these books at the same time and knowing that they would be releted to one another I was stumped on which to read first. Was this the idea of SK/RB to confuse the reader as both books seam to overlap with dates in the story

Stephen King's wife's (!) middle name is Angela I think. Therefore, TAK. Maybe they had a row when he chose her initials as the 'bad guys' in The Regulators and Desperation?!

Regulators/Desperation: * Both of the books use all of the same names, just for different characters. * Tak, an evil vampyre-like spirit appears in both. * On the hardcover versions, the back-cover art has a hole and shows the cover art of the other book. * Hard cover versions: if you hold the two covers up side by side, they form a large picture. Further showing how they are inter-related. * Columbus Ohio is mentioned in both books, but I can't remember anything specific as its been a while. Most of these are gimmicks that were used to sell the books.

The book I got from the library was Desperation on one side, and then you'd turn it over and upside down and read it from the other end and it was The Regulators.

As you will notice there is a lot of weird language in the book "Desperation". It is referred to as the "language of the dead". I doubt this language is really a registered and used language, just made up. So I try to find some kind of eeggs in this language whenever it is used in the book. I urge you to do the same if your reading this book. It just seems like there is more behind these two books.

One thing I noticed was that in many of his books there is a guy who plays guitar. In The Stand there's two, one guy and the kid who always wears underwear and nothing else. And then in The Regulators, there is a guitar player. Also, there are writers in like 5 of them. It:Stuttering Bill Desperation: John Marinville (I think that was his name) and in both stories they are the hero in the end. I think S.K models these characters after himself, being a writer and probably wanting to be a hero.

Number one rule of writing-Write what you know. Maybe this explains why there writers and guitar players in a lot of King's books.

Quick list of king characters that are writers (off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more): Ben Mears in Salem's Lot, Paul in the Shining, Jim Gardener in the Tommyknockers, Bill Denbrough in It, Richard.. I think Hanstrom, from Word Processor of the Gods, Reg Thorpe and one of the listeners from Ballad of the Flexible Bullet.

Don't forget Jack Torrance from The Shining, Thadeus Beaumont from The Dark Half, Mike Noonan from Bag of Bones, Roberta Anderson and James Gardner from The Tommyknockers, Reg Thorpe from "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" in Skeleton Crew, David Drayton from "The Mist" in Skeleton Crew, Morton Rainey from "Secret Window, Secret Garden" in Four past Midnight, Howard Fornoy from "the End of the Whole Mess" in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and Peter Rosewall and Peter Jefferies from "Dedication" in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

on my copies of these books Desperation SAYS it's the sister book to the regulators. Jesus I gotta read them again

Has anybody compared the language of the dead used in Desperation to the High Speech mention in The Dark Tower Series? Could this foreshadow a victory for Roland, saving the world, and as he does, the reality of the universe is disturbed by the change of the tower causes a change in time that makes Rolands adventures long ago? (another example is in It when something's mentioned bout a UFO crashing in the area of prehistoric Derry, could it be the Tommyknockers?)

For Howard and Vanessa, Tabitha King uses her maiden name, Spruce, as a middle name.

Also, as the hard cover cover artwork showed, in the Regulators, the town was turned into the town in Nevada.

well, if anyone is truely curious, in stephen king's newest book, Everything's Eventual, one of the nurses says the *exact* same phrases that tak says in desperation, to control some bugs, something along the lines of "mie en tow, something something" when i saw that my eyes certainly widened a bit :)

I read Desperation a couple of years ago, and when I picked up my copy of the regulators, I had no idea that these two books were so closely related! King is high in my regard when he can scare the bejeezus out of me with one word: When the kid in the regulators say TAK for the first time (on the phone with Marineville) I literally jumped in my seat! I just didn't see that coming! I love his work!

So...which one are we supposed to read first, please? I would love to know!! Desperation or Regulators...or doesn'ty it matter? Hmm... Lauri

In both books, there's a passage (it involves a character fighting a cougar in one book and a panther in the other) that is almost word-for-word exactly the same. It compares a character fighting a wild cat to a strange dance.

Tabitha King's middle name is Jane-Frances, according to Wikipedia, so TAK isn't based on her initials.

I've read every novel and collection of short stories by king, and yes, the amount of continuity between them all is mind boggling, and there are some interesting orders in which you can read them all, since i've read most of them multiple times, and i'd love to share these, but for now, for you to get a real kick out of the stories, read The Regulators first and then read Desperation. Trust me, it's more amazing that way.