Let the games begin

Benjamin Richards is very desperate. He lives in the poorest area of Co-Op City with his wife and his sick daughter. And there is no money for medicine. Ben's out of a job and he doesn't want his wife to go out on the streets to make some money. So Ben does what every desperate man in 2025 does, he enlists himself to join one of the cruel and vicious gameshows on 'Free Vee'. After a vetting process he joins the cruelest of them all: The Running Man! A gameshow where he can use the entire continent to hide away from 'The Hunters' who only have one job: to eliminate Ben!

He has thirty days to survive the show. If he manages to get out of the hands of the Hunters, he wins the prize money. But a desperate man who has a lot to loose becomes a dangerous man! And Ben uses his strength and 'his' people to get away from the hunters and the law enforcement. With the help from a few people who live in the same conditions as he does, he manages to stay safe for a while. But he can't keep endangering others and has to move. And soon after the hunters are on his trail. Will Ben survive 'The Running Man'?

This novel is one of the books King wrote under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, so it strays a little from what we are used to when talking about 'classic' Stephen King. The dystopian, sci-fi setting is something he doesn't use a lot in his works. (Back in the days, that was the reason King wrote it under the Bachman name, so he could write something different from what people knew him from). From the four stories from the 'Bachman Books' collection (in recent editions, there are only three left, because Rage may no longer be published by the author himself due to the theme in the story: school shooting, a huge problem in the USA), The Running Man is the one I least like. Although it is an edge-of-your-seat rollercoaster, it is also one of the novels where most characters, even the protagonist, are very unlikeable in every way. Even though you get why Richards does what he does and there's a certain compassion for the guy, he's a rude brute who makes a lot of wrong choices.

In November 2025 a new adaptation, directed by Edgar Wright, with Glenn Powell as Ben Richards and Josh Brolin as dan Killian. Hence why I reread this story now (like I did with The Long Walk earlier this year) as I am getting ready for the release of this movie. In the eighties an adaptation with Arnold Schwarzenegger was released but that one changed a lot of the source material. So I am wondering how much Edwards will stay true to the novel. It was one of the books by King he always wanted to adapt so I'm very curious about it.

In this novel, that was first published in 1982 (funny thing, the setting of this novel is in 2025), there's a (typical?) futuristic view on society and about the gap between the rich and the poor. Unfortunately, this world has gained to this negative view written decades before. It may not be thát extreme (yet?) but we see a lot of things happening these past months and years, it makes you wonder if King maybe had one of the orbs from Maerlyn's Rainbow... (I'm sure, Dark Tower fans will understand what I mean by this).

Reference to other novels by King:

Actually there is only one but it should be reversed. In this book there’s mentioning of Derry, the town under control by Pennywise. But as this story was 1. written under his pseudonym and 2. written years before It came out, it’s actually the first time the author mentioned Derry in his works.