A review by bradley_clarke96
The Running Man by Stephen King, Richard Bachman

dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Loved this book. Very tense, not massively predictable. Lots of good ol’ fashion Stephen King gore. Thought the world was interesting as a completely terrible place to live in. Funny to see his predictions for 2025 (maybe floating cars will come out next year?). Only thing was the quite frequent use of different slurs, even by the main character. As this is a Bachman book, it could be seen as a bit of a cheap tactic to seem “edgier”. Instead I choosing to believe that it’s to show their world as being much more divided and much more horrible than ours. With even the main character having flawed thinking, being a product of that world. Also maybe people thought it was more acceptable back in 1982?