The Running Man

A real page turner. I read the book in a day. The story is fairly fast paced. The chapters are small (1-5 pages each). The chapter numbers start at 90 and count down to 0. It’s like a beat the clock type of thing. King’s writing pulls you in and makes you want to keep reading.

The plot is basically that America has become overly obsessed with violence and sex and need to watch violent game shows to get their jollies. The main character is poor and supported by government “welfare”, but has a very sick 18 month old daughter that needs proper medical care, medicine, and a doctor. But due to the (dystopian) class system, the poor folk can only afford black market medication, that usually never really works. He basically says to himself that he’s got nothing to loose. So he chooses to fight the system and try out for one of the violent game shows where he could win $1 billion, but the catch is that you’ll have to survive 30 days outrunning a team of highly trained, heavily armed hunters. Your given a 12 hour head start and you can run anywhere in the world... before the hunters start. Your picture is broadcasted to everyone watching across the country, so the public is in on it too. If someone sees you they can call in a tip and be rewarded.

And one more thing the main character finds out just as the game is about to begin... no contestant has ever made it through the full 30 days without being caught. When the time comes, and the hunters have you surrounded the show breaks into regularly scheduled programming, and your own personal “Waterloo” is broadcast live all over the country.

But the main character is smart, maybe too smart...

It is an easy read and a fast thriller.

The Running Man is a dystopian novel visualizing a future world of even greater and more widely distributed poverty than that of our current world. The "Have Nots" live in ghettos and are kept entertained and quiet through a free television system which airs violent and blood thirsty games programmes. The contestants for these games are carefully selected based on specific physical weaknesses such as a heart condition and, while the contestants do win money for their efforts, they always walk away greatly injured or, in the case of the prime time game, The Running Man, dead. The contestants that are selected for The Running Man are troublemakers who the government wishes to get rid of. The television station is under the thumb of the ruling government which aims to maintain the current societal status quo.

Ben Richards is a troublemaker in the eyes of the law. A man who has protested against the lack of heath regulation for low level workers and has been black marked by employers as a result. Ben is married and has managed to have a child, Cathy, despite working in a factory where he was exposed to radiation for years. Now, however, the Richards are struggling to put food on the table and little Cathy is deathly sick with influenza. There is no money for a doctor. Ben's wife, Sheila, turns tricks as a prostitute to obtain some badly needed funds, much to her husband's anguish. In desperation, Ben decides to apply for one of the game shows.

Ben's application is successful and, identified early on in the application process, as a troublemaker, he is allocated to The Running Man. No-one has ever survived this game which requires the contestant to run from the hunters who are out to kill him. The public can join in the game and win but calling in sightings of the contestant to the television studio. No-one is on the runners side which makes surviving extremely difficult. Ben soon discovers that the game is also rigged and the two video cassettes he has to mail to the television studio every day are provided to the hunters to help them determine his location. Ben, however, is a survivor. He is also a man running on hate and this turns out to be a rather bad combination for the hierarchy of the television studio.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Running Man and recommend it to all lovers of dystopian fiction.

Stephen King is one of the greatest storytellers of our time. To be honest, I've always preferred his non-horror works and feel that this is overall one of his best. I found it interesting that he penned this under the pseudonym, Richard Bachman, as it varied so much from what he was most known for, plus he also said he wanted to see if his stories were actually good, or if people were simply buying into his "brand". Some Minor Spoilers Follow While a huge fan of the classic 1987 film adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, it bears almost no resemblance to the book that was said to have inspired it. In the book, Ben Richards is described as a gangling, pre-tubercular, twenty-eight years old, standing 6'2" and 165 pounds. During one rather 'tight-fitting' situation (which seriously made me claustrophobic) Richards is grateful that he's underfed. He is also not a former police officer / soldier, but destitute and unemployed, married with a sick child, whose wife is compelled to 'turn tricks' in order to put food on the table. The film version of Richards is about twelve years older, unmarried, and well...Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stephen King even said that the book version of Richards was, "as far away from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get".

The plot is also very different, with The Running Man taking place all over the country, rather than confined to a single arena. There are also none of the 80s gameshow-style scenes, nor do we see any of the 'stalkers' from the film. Those hunting Richards are almost completely unseen, adding to the suspense, as he has no idea who is coming for him. The names of the main protagonist, as well as a couple of side characters, and the game itself are about the only similarities between the book and film. Both are dystopian in nature, though the film only hints at the rampant poverty and corruption rife throughout the world, while the book slams the reader right in the middle of the deepest squalor, where hope isn't even a pipe dream. The poverty, desolation, and hopelessness of society's poorest are more a part of the story than the sadistic 'game' force-fed onto their televisions (called "Free-Vees") to keep them distracted and from rioting. King is a master of creating characters who we empathise with, and regardless of our own situations in life, can somehow relate to. Because we become so vested in the characters, this book becomes a real page-turner as soon as you start reading. I finished it in just a couple days, at one point staying up until almost 1:00 in the morning because I could not stop. I admit, I was slightly disappointed in the ending, only because I was able to see it coming way too soon, whereas most of the story keeps you on the edge of your seat, unable to know what happens next. Still, this is a very minor criticism, and it does not detract from the story as a whole.

Mind you, the film is still an Arnold Classic (see what I did there?), though it is definitely "80s" in its feel and is in many ways dated because of it. The novel, I feel, remains relevant and is even more of an indictment against rampant poverty and our society today than when it was written in 1982.