THE RUNNING MAN

THE RUNNING MAN - Stephen King aka Richard Bachman

Wow, what a ride!

The aptly named book kept me running, er flipping through the pages like I was running a marathon. Essentially the story is about a man who is a contestant on a gameshow where he is set loose and the world hunts him down. There are roadblocks after roadblocks that this man overcomes. He uses disguises, help from others, trickery, and sometimes firepower (aka guns). The great writing by King makes the chase, which is half the book, not seem repetitive. He does a great job of mixing in luck, brainpower, the unknown, and full out sprinting action to keep things fresh, and to keep me reading late into the night.

The main character is a dodgy fellow who is selfish, crude, and very very (very) anti-authority. But, he is also smart, possibly good hearted deep down inside, and brave. So a good mix of good and bad. At times you want to hate him, but you are always rooting for him to win. An interesting dynamic.

I will say that the movie had Arnold as the main character - um, the book described a scruffy, emaciated, poverty stricken man...not buff Arnold in a speedo suit!

Arnold in The Running Man

What I think is neat is that King wrote this book in the early 80s, well before the advent of Reality TV. However, this idea of taking a regular person, playing a giant game of hide and seek, putting it on TV would have seemed far out there at the time, but nowadays it is so common you might even reject the idea as 'another one of those Reality TV shows'. Now, we wouldn't be hunting down and encouraging death and killing, but the idea is similar. Isn't it?!

I wonder if this book inspired others like The Hunger Games? A good bookclub question eh?