Stephen [Edwin] King - Running Man, The - 7

[StefanY]

Running Man, The

It's the future and Ben Richards journeys to the Network Games Building to apply for a job as a contestant in order to supply the money to feed his family and provide medicine for his sick infant daughter. The job he gets ends up being more than both he and the Network bargained for!

The Running Man is a fairly well written tale set in the now not too distant future. Interestingly enough, the country is riveted to their free-vees in order to watch what is in essence nothing more than an unending stream of reality television game shows. It makes me wonder if Mark Burnett based some of his ideas upon this book and the (sort of) related movie.

Once Richards has moved through the application process, the action moves along at a pretty brisk pace and there are some really nice elements of storytelling apparent throughout. My only complaint is that King tries a little too hard with creating the future setting and goes overboard with the names and slogans for things that he uses in his setting. At times, especially during the beginning of the book, it's a bit cheesy and distracting.


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