‘The Running Man’ – Stephen King (Hodder)
It has been a long old time since I last read ‘The Running Man’, years in fact, long enough that I can remember reading it but have no real idea when… Not the worst problem, in the world, to have but it is bugging me right now, I hate not being able to remember things.
Anyway…
I thought I’d take a little break from ‘The End and the Death: Volume 2’ and go for something a little faster paced. At only 241 pages, ‘The Running Man’ looked like it would fit the bill nicely and there was also the added incentive to pay it a visit before the film comes out next month. So, after I’d dropped my girls back with their Mum last night, I settled down for a read and…
It's not just a game when you're running for your life.
Every night they tune in to the nation's favourite prime-time TV game show.
They all watch, from the sprawling slums to the security-obsessed enclaves of the rich. They all watch the ultimate live death game as the contestants try to beat not the clock, but annihilation at the hands of the Hunters. Survive thirty days and win the billion dollar jackpot - that is the promise. But the odds are brutal and the game rigged. Best score so far is eight days.
And now there is a new contestant, the latest Running Man, running for his life while a nation watches.
I picked up ‘The Running Man’ last night and couldn’t put it down until I’d finished, it was that simple. While it’s not a perfect read, more on that in a bit, the concept, and the speed that it runs at, makes it all too easy to get stuck in and keep reading until it’s done. That was my experience anyway :o)
That breakneck pace can work against the book at times. A sub-plot, about the motivations of the Network and what it holds back, doesn’t get the time that it needed to really develop in the way it needed to. When a plot is running at that breakneck speed, the last thing it needs is to leave questions unanswered and that’s what happens here. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that while King/Bachman has some important things to say about the future of ‘Reality TV’ (At least at the time of writing), the story would have worked better if Ben Richards had been left to get on with it and just run.
When Ben ‘just runs’, the plot boils down to the urgency of Bens predicament, what he must deal with in front of him and the menace of the Hunters dogging his footsteps. Ben’s motivations are noble but he’s also enough of a bastard to really make the reader want to stick around and find out just how far Ben is prepared to go in order to win. Mix all of that together and you’ve got a main plot strand that crackles with energy and is full of moments that not only jump off the page but have really got me hoping for great things from the upcoming movie.
‘The Running Man’ is perhaps not as streamlined, as it wanted to be, and certain bits left me wondering what the end result could have been if things had been tightened up. If you just concentrate on the main event though (and that’s what you’re here for really), ‘The Running Man’ does a superb job of grabbing your attention and utterly refusing to let go. Definitely worth your time, I really mustn’t leave it so long before picking the book up again.
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