Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 7/19/2021 + 1179 more book reviews

This is one of the early books written by Stephen King published under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman. The book was originally published in 1982 and is set in the future in 2025. The protagonist, Ben Richards is in desperate need of money. He lives in the squalid area of Harding City and his young daughter needs treatment for her illness. Meanwhile, his wife is turning tricks to try to make extra cash to pay for medicine and possibly a doctor to treat her daughter's illness. In this future world, everyone watches Free-Vee and the brutal game shows where contestants are pitted in life-or-death games. Ben decides to participate in one of the worst of these games where the contestants are hunted to the death, The Running Man. If he makes it for 30 days, his reward will be immense and along the way, his wife will be compensated for every hour he survives. But is this a fair game or is it rigged in favor of the network? Can Richards make it to the end and survive the ordeal?

This was a very intense dystopian sci-fi novel from King. It is the first I have read of his original four Bachman books and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Of course, it is somewhat dated with a lot of the technology from the 80s still being used in 2025. But King's story was also very relevant to today's world. The society included vicious and hated police officers with the poor fighting against them. The ever-present Free-Vee is similar to today's mesmerization with cell phones and videos. And King also included what seemed to be a very good premonition of 9/11.

I know this was also made into a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger which I remember watching many years ago. I know the movie differs greatly from the book and King even mentions it in the forward to this book on why he was Bachman. I guess now I need to read the rest of the Bachman Books!

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