Rating: 
Summary: Ever seen the movie "Falling Down"?
Review: I thought that "Roadwork" was the best of books Stephen King wrote as Richard Bachman. Apparently, I am alone in this viewpoint. But I think that if you can sympathize with being fed up with the state of the world and wanting to just give up, but at the same time still have hope, then you'll appreciate this book. Once again, Stephen King has done a wonderful job of probing the human mind. This is a book about frustration, and it screams "you are not alone." I'd say this is right up there with "The Green Mile."
Rating:
Summary: Ever seen the movie "Falling Down"?
Review: I thought that "Roadwork" was the best of books Stephen King wrote as Richard Bachman. Apparently, I am alone in this viewpoint. But I think that if you can sympathize with being fed up with the state of the world and wanting to just give up, but at the same time still have hope, then you'll appreciate this book. Once again, Stephen King has done a wonderful job of probing the human mind. This is a book about frustration, and it screams "you are not alone." I'd say this is right up there with "The Green Mile."
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best of King
Review: I've long moved on from Stephen King's horror tales. However, Roadwork remains a favorite novel above the rest. The story reads like watching a classic "Decade Under the Influence" 70's film.
Bart Dawes grapples with middle age, loss of home, family, and employment set in the empty world of middle class America of the 70s. Dawes' only comfort is his memories and imaginary conversations with his conscience, whimsically named Freddy after his dead son. As he watches a new road pave over the places he loves and his memories, Barton Dawes revolts against complacency and embarks on an odessey to find his place in the world that no longer makes sense.
Younger readers may not understand the setting and should do some research into the time period. The seventies was the decade white-bread America came of age and realized our perfect suburban worlds were an empty facade contengent upon the whims of politics and big business. After reading Roadwork's climatic ending, one can see the themes of ever increasing government intrusion and corporate power over the lives of everyday people is still true today, and frighteningly, has increased since the first energy crisis of 30 years ago.
Rating: 
Summary: Strong Piece of Bachman/King Cannon
Review: Kings best works were all written under the name Bachman, and here is a decent example (the best being Rage, the second being The Long Walk--this one comes in third.) This is the story of a man whos life is very quickly turned upside down, and what extend his stress leads to when, on top of everything else, he is to be kicked out of his home for the construction of a highway. One of the Bachman talents comes through strong yet again--the ability to sit you front row center in the mind of the character; you get the emotions, the reason, and the overwhelming ability to sympathize more strongly than you are usually allowed to in most other works of fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: The shaky cease-fire still holds
Review: Like movies, some books just get old.The book is full of allegories and direct references. Snip: (...)
Rating:
Summary: Bad horror-thriller, but a good novel of madness.
Review: Like the Bachman novel "Rage", this one too, is about madness, and hate, and how some people just want to destroy everything when they go mad. That is why this is so realistic, but it might be a bit harmful to some readers because of its "solution" to the hate---a shootout. A clever book about a railway being built by some guy's house, who has to have his house removed. He doesn't like this, so day by day, he plans his revenge. It's a hard to understand bok, and overall, I wouldn't say it is a good book because of its contents and negative point of view but I wouldn't say its bad because it says: "Speak out your feelings."
Rating:
Summary: He¿s filled with problems, Roadwork
Review: Roadwork by Stephen King. Is a book that will keep you interested and make you want to keep reading to see what happens. The main character, Bart Dawes, narrates the book and is in man difficult situations, which he brought on himself. Dawes is happily married to his wife Mary, who does not work. Bart has a job at the Blue Ribbon, a dry cleaning business. There is one main problem, the road on which Bart and Mary live, and the area where the Blue Ribbon sits, is in the way of the 784 extension highway that is going to be built. The book starts on November 20, exactly two months before Bart and Mary have to be out of their house. The Blue Ribbon was planning on being relocated, but because Bart never signed the papers for the new place in time, everything was dropped and Bart was out of a job. However, that wasn't the only thing Bart forgot to do. He also forgets to find a new house. When Mary finds this out she leaves him. Bart considers suicide because of all his troubles. The house filled with so many memories does not want to be left by Bart. What will Bart do about his house, wife, and job? Will he survive? This book is pretty good because of the way King expresses Bart's feelings, and I recommend it to be read by others.
Rating:
Summary: A book for people who enjoy test patterns
Review: Roadwork is a novel with short snatches of interesting parts, buried in a whole lotta nothing. Some of the things just didn't make sense, and the unconscience dialogue form he mastered in his later novels detracts alot from the story. A colossal waste of time if you value plots that are thought out ahead of time, not just held together by chewing gum and string.
Rating:
Summary: Not the tops, but worth a read.
Review: Roadwork is a quick read with good character development the makes the central character's road to insanity believeable.Like all Bachman novels (The Regulators possibly excpeted, haven;t read it), it is sort of a countdown to an insane event triggered by an insane world. This treatment of the theme is unique because the world is ours, unaltered (unlike The Running Man and The Long Walk) and the character is an innocent, and seems just fine before his world crumples in on him. Worth a go, epecially for King fans. Should be a breeze to get though.
Rating:
Summary: A tale of the first energy crisis...
Review: Roadwork starts off suspensefully, as a crazed man with a knack for carrying on conversations with himself buys a high-caliber rifle and a .44 Magnum revolver. However, the explosive result of this purchase, which you might expect to be soon coming, doesn't arrive until the very end of the book. To get there, we must wade through some very dense, overly-detailed (but very well written) exposition.
Bart Dawes has finally been pushed too far; at age 40, he's lost his only son to a brain tumor, and now the public works commission has decided to build a new highway system, which will not only go through (and thereby erase) the building Bart's worked in for the past twenty years, but also his home. Bart must move, but he refuses to. In the process, Bart will lose his job, his friends, his wife, and his sanity, but he stands strong in his refusal to leave his home, reminiscent in a way of Hank Stamper in Ken Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion."
Roadwork is different than anything Stephen King (well, Richard Bachman, to be precise) has written; it's more a character study than anything else. As King himself wrote in his "Why I Was Bachman" introduction to the first edition of The Bachman Books, "Roadwork is probably the worst of the lot, because it tries so hard to be good." And that's the whole of it: Roadwork reads like it's been written by a young writer who's trying hard to appeal to the literary crowd. It's verbose, packed with introspection, and moves along at a snail's pace; the total opposite of the Bachman/King extravaganza The Running Man.
It's no surprise that King relates that Roadwork was written at a time when he was trying to impress those elitists whom would ask him at cocktail parties if he'd ever write "something important." (Interestingly, in the second edition of the Bachman Books, in a foreword titled "The Importance of Being Bachman," King states that Roadwork is now his favorite of the Bachman bunch.)
This is not to say Roadwork is a bad book, or even a boring book. It takes dedication to keep turning those pages when you begin reading it, but in time you adjust to the casual pace of the narrative, you begin to learn (and respect) who Bart Dawes is, and you root for him, no matter how nuts he's become.
The ending finally picks up the pace, as Dawes accepts his fate and brings those guns into play, as well as a generous supply of explosives. In that regard, Roadwork packs the suspenseful punch you'd normally associate with the books under Richard Bachman's name. But with its slow pace, grim view on the world (the Bachman view is generally that life sucks, and terrible things happen for no reason), combined with its firm rooting in the 1970s (which might make it inaccessible to those who weren't around in that decade), Roadwork might not appeal to the average King/Bachman fan. However, for those looking for an intense character study that slowly builds to an explosive climax, it comes recommended.
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