Desperation

I was actually surprised that I was able to compose yesterday's post. It was rather late when I did so. I was up watching the adaptation of Stephen King's "Desperation" until 11:00. I read this story for the first time a bit over a year ago, and it was good enough that I read it again, and now I may yet again. I think a lot of the reason I had had a block on reading it before this was the way it came out when it was new. It was released at the same time as Richard Bachman's "The Regulators", and both stories had almost the same characters and some similar elements. For those of you that don't know, Richard Bachman was a pseudonym that Stephen King published five novels under before he died of the rare and deadly cancer of the pseudonym. I read and enjoyed these books after his death, but the release of yet another book, postmortem, with the release of Stephen King's latest was way too hokey and contrived for me to buy into. In retrospect, I should have been more open minded, I enjoy most everything either of them write.

There seemed to be very little fanfare to the airing of this movie. I was wondering how it would adapt to the small screen, some stories do fairly well, and others die a slow death. Of course, there is the matter of how to get in all the detail that was in the book in a three hour show (likely less than 2 ½ if you discount the commercials). I have to say, they did a great job!!! One of the best adaptations of a King story I've seen. Of course, not every little nuance made it in, I am fairly sure that one character was completely omitted, as well as many details. I'm going to have to go back to the book and check it out to see if I'm right, and what else was missed when I finish my current read (the protagonist in my current read reminds me in many ways of my freind Sammy, think I'll loan it to him when I'm done).

The thing I wonder about though, is there going to be an adaptation of "The Regulators" now that this one has been made into a movie??? I would love to see that, could use many of the same actors.... Might not be as easily done, though. A higher level of suspension of disbelief.

Before I purchased this book I was looking at it in a bookstore, reading the foreword, written by Stephen King. In his describing the two stories he made mention that "Desperation" was about God, and "The Regulators" was about television, so you could say that both were stories about higher powers. I hope he is appreciating the irony of this one having been made into a made for TV movie!!!