The Running Man
The Running Man is the 4th book that Stephen King published under the name “Richard Bachman”. Set in an apocalyptic future (only 5 years from now) where the wealthy watch the poor fight for their lives on television for entertainment. The most popular show is “The Running Man”, where one man must run for his life out in the real world, and avoid being hunted down and killed. Why would anyone want to participate in such a program? Ben Richards signs up to compete in the Running Man show to try and earn money to save his dying daughter. There is no middle class in this world… there are the “have’s” and the “have not’s”. Richards’ family has so little money that his daughter is going to die from pneumonia, because they cannot afford simple medicine for her.
The world that King created here is harsh. The way that poor people are described in this world is atrocious. King makes it very clear that lower class people are dirty disgusting barbarians. At the same time, the upper class people are bloodthirsty, lacking any sort of empathy, and basically evil. There’s not a lot of nuance here. The Games Authority that runs “The Running Man” show, does really feel like this large evil corporation. I mean, any entity that promotes using human lives as sport must be evil right? While that may be true, it’s also true that Ben Richards is not a nice person. You want to root for him to win, to get the money and save his daughter, but he’s just not a nice person. He’s sarcastic, vulgar, cruel, and he also kills people. Sure, you could say that it’s kill or be killed, but he makes very clear choices with very little regret.
I was very conflicted about the end of this story. On one hand, I really did feel for Richards and what he was going through. There is something shocking revealed at the end that feels like a punch to the gut. At the same time though, his choices and actions were very extreme. Due to things that have happened in the history of our real world, it’s hard to see certain things play out, and not feel horrible about it. At the end of the day, Richards is not a heroic character, so there was no way he was going to get a heroic ending. In my opinion this was one of the better Bachman Books, but not the best.
