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A review by midici
The Running Man by Stephen King, Richard Bachman
3.0
This book was not subtle. The plot revolves around Ben, who decides to participate in the Games to earn money for his sick daughter. The Games are a series of reality shows put on by the Games network, which apparently controls everything. You don't get to choose which Game you participate in, the network chooses. Ben is a noted "anti-" everything basically; anti-authority, anti-network, etc. He gets chosen for the Running Man, where he earns money for every hour he can spend alive while being hunted down by literally everyone.
The way Ben goes from utterly uninterested in anyone but his family, to suddenly trying to expose the truth about how the Network and Corporations are killing everyone via pollution is fairly abrupt and not convincing. The ending is pretty bleak. He's offered a job as a "hunter" on the show - the only person to be given an offer of amnesty, basically. But he also learns that his wife and kid are dead due to unrelated circumstances. Distraught, he takes his high-jacked plane and flies it into the Games network tower.
It's not really a resolution, just an ending. And not one that hints to anything changing in the near future.
The way Ben goes from utterly uninterested in anyone but his family, to suddenly trying to expose the truth about how the Network and Corporations are killing everyone via pollution is fairly abrupt and not convincing. The ending is pretty bleak. He's offered a job as a "hunter" on the show - the only person to be given an offer of amnesty, basically. But he also learns that his wife and kid are dead due to unrelated circumstances. Distraught, he takes his high-jacked plane and flies it into the Games network tower.
It's not really a resolution, just an ending. And not one that hints to anything changing in the near future.