Rating: 
Summary: We Need More Sci-Fi Novels Like This!
Review:
The Running Man may well be the most stunningly prophetic novel Stephen King ever wrote. 50 pages from the end of the novel, I realized he was going to have Ben Richards fly a plane into the side of a New York City skyscraper. The passage is worth quoting:
"Heeling over slightly, the Lockheed struck the Games Building dead on, three quarters of the way up. Its tanks were still better than a quarter full. Its speed was slightly over five hundred miles an hour. The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away."
The Running Man was published in 1982.
Aside from what may have just been a stunning fictional coincidence of what we've all come to know in our own post-9/11 lives, the story of The Running Man itself may well be the most thoroughly entertaining novel of King's career. In the introduction to the collection from which I read, he mentions that he wrote it in a 72-hour period and published it with little or no edits.
What The Running Man may lack in polish and grammatical acumen, it makes up for with sheer energy and a torrential pace unlike any other novel I've ever read. It may well be the fastest read you will ever experience. It's like one of those super-high-speed rollercoasters that can do upwards of 150 miles per hour. It's extremely intense, extremely fast, and extremely fun.
The book and the movie are different. The book sets up Ben Richards as a family man who has no other choice than to go on this game show called "The Running Man," wherein contestants are hunted down and killed for the entertainment pleasure of television audiences. Ben's young daughter is dying of pneumonia, and he and his wife don't have the money to take her to a doctor. If he wins the game show, he saves his daughter; he's a ready-made hero you absolutely want to cheer for!
Also, the book allows Ben the entire landscape of New England in which to run, so we see him in New York and Boston and in the skies over Pennsylvania. Similar to the movie, Ben turns out to be more resourceful than executives with the game show had anticipated, and he ends up killing a lot of people.
The Running Man is not a novel for everyone, but if you do want to read it, chances are you'll end up loving it. It's a great read, and I highly recommend it. It's one of those early Stephen King novels for which I would love to see a new movie version; I think a new movie could be very effective if it brought in Ben as the desperate family man we see in the book; it could entertain a new generation. I think people would like to see it. I guess I just wish there were more sci-fi novels like this, man. It's really a classic. And, of course, I hope this review is helpful to you!
Stacey Cochran, author of The Kiribati Test
Rating:
Summary: An action novel with a suprising amount of social commentary
Review: Let me preface this reveiw by urging anyone who has seen the movie to not judge the book by it. This book, although not 1984, is far more profund than anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it. Ben Richards, the lead character in The Running Man, is accurately described by one character as an anachronism- he beleives in fidelity and virtue in a bleak dystopian world obsessed with 3D Perverto Mags and watching their fellow man killed on the "Free-Vee". However, he is poor and his daughter is ill...the paltry unemployment check must be used for food and he does not wish to see his wife reverting to prostituion. He turns to the Games, barbaric exploits of human suffering to appease the masses, and is chosen for the most prestigious, dangerous, and rewarding game- The Running Man. In The Running Man the one doing the running must elude the Hunters for 30 days, using the whole world as his arena. However, the running man must send two videotapes per day back to the Network- enabling the Hunters to pinpoint his location. Nonetheless, Richards is resourceful and skilled at dissapearing into the bowels of large cities- he has nothing to lose except his life, and knows that the money he makes will reach his wife regardless of whether he lives or dies. I couldn't put this book down, but upon finishing it, (incidentally the ending hits a perfect note for a dystopian novel) I realized there was more to the book than "met the eye", if you pardon the cliche. Stephen King (although this book was writen under the psuedonym of Richard Bachman) includes enough social commentary -be it concerning class division, pollution or the television's ability to put blinders on one's eyes- to entice someone looking for more than just an exilarating action novel. Highly reccomended, but avoid the movie like the plague.
Rating: 
Summary: You can run but you can't hide.
Review: It is the year 2025, TV is truly the opiate of the people, and society is divided sharply between the haves and the have-nots. Ben Richards' family is in the latter group. He's been unfairly blacklisted and his wife has had to resort to hooking to pay the bills. Meanwhile, his baby daughter lies ill with the flu - perfectly treatable if only they could afford it. Desperate and at the end of his rope, Richards opts to participate in a game show called "The Running Man." He is to become the quarry in a deadly hunt that will last no more than thirty days. For each day he successfully evades his pursuers, his family earns a large sum of money. No one has ever lasted more than eight days. The games network, of course, hardly plays fair. The rules require Ben to periodically mail in videos, thereby running the risk of giving his location away. And rewards are given for any information leading to his apprehension, so Richards is also playing against a bored and bloodthirsty public -- in other words, everyone. The ongoing hunt is very suspenseful, but it's when Richards finally confronts his true nemesis that things get really interesting. As I was reading I couldn't help thinking that this story was ready-made for film. It moves along at a rapid pace, especially once the game is underway. It's not simplistic, but neither is it complicated enough that it should require much tampering. (I've not yet seen the movie, but from what I have heard they somehow dropped the ball. Too bad.) The concept of reality TV probably seemed outrageous or at least far-fetched in 1982, when The Running Man first appeared. Now it seems disturbingly prescient. Though the book belongs in the science fiction genre, it is more frightening than many of his horror stories. One warning about this edition: the story is prefaced by an introduction lifted from the earlier Bachman Books publication, and for some reason King gives away the ending in it. Maybe it's an editing oversight. In any case, save it until you've read the book. It will allow you a more powerful reading experience.
Rating:
Summary: Run to the store and get this!
Review: This is an interesting short novel set in the not too distant future. Richards is unemployed, poor and has a dieing daughter who he cannot afford drugs for. The only solution for someone in his predicament is to go on television and participate in a game show. Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and that type of thing are not the rating blockbusters in this era. People with weak a heart run on a treadmill which increases in speed whenever they get a question wrong. If they survive to the end they win money. This is just one example of what to tune into in the future. Richards is not the most pleasant of men and is not too nice to his interviewers, doctors and everyone along the way. There is a special game show for people like him. In it he can potentially make one million new dollars if he wins. If however like all contestants before him he does not win, then he will die. He must outrun and avoid hunters intent on killing him for a number of days. The public can win money by ringing the station and turning in his whereabouts so there is nowhere to run. He can kill those after him but no civilians. He also must constantly mail in tapes of himself talking to the camera every day so even though he is told the postal marks are not shown to the hunters he knows this is untrue and must keep on the move. I saw the movie of this book when I was a little kid so saw no point in reading it until now. Surprisingly, well I guess it shouldn't really be a surprise, the book really is nothing like the Schwarzenegger action movie. It is a pretty good read and a must for fans of action thrillers.
Rating:
Summary: Forget seeing the movie....
Review: read this book. The movie simply pales in comparison. The underground post-apocalyptic game area of the movie just made no sense. This book actually takes part in the U.S. and regular people can call in and tell the Hunters where the Runners are. It's like America's Most Wanted turned in to a game show. All the characters are as real as they come and there's no cheesy weapons or story lines. If you are in to action stories this is it.
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