 First edition cover | |
| Author | Stephen King (asRichard Bachman) |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Signet Books |
Publication date | May 4,1982 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 219 |
| ISBN | 978-0-451-11508-9 |
The Running Man is adystopianthrillernovel by American writerStephen King, first published under thepseudonymRichard Bachman in 1982 as apaperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the omnibusThe Bachman Books. The novel is set in adystopianUnited States during the year 2025, in which the nation's economy is in ruins and world violence is rising. The story follows protagonist Ben Richards as he participates in thereality showThe Running Man, in which contestants win money by evading a team of hitmen sent to kill them.
The central premise of a televised manhunt was previously explored in dystopian literature, most notably in Robert Sheckley's 1958 science fiction short story,The Prize of Peril, which features a contestant hunted by professionals across an urban landscape for a cash prize.
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In 2025, the world's economy is in shambles and America has become a totalitarian dystopia. Ben Richards, an impoverished 28-year-old resident of the fictional Co-Op City, is unable to find work, having been blacklisted from his trade. His gravely ill daughter, Cathy, needs medicine, and his wife, Sheila, has resorted to prostitution to bring in money for the family. In desperation, Richards turns to the Games Network, a government-operated television station that runs violent game shows. After rigorous physical and mental testing, Richards is selected to appear onThe Running Man, the Network's most popular, lucrative, and dangerous program. He is interviewed by Dan Killian, the executive producer of the program, who describes the challenges he will face once the game begins. He also meets Fred Victor, the show's director, and Bobby Thompson, the MC and host.
The contestant is declared an enemy of the state and released with a 12-hour head start before the Hunters, an elite team of Network-employed hitmen, are sent out to kill him. The contestant earns $100 per hour for staying alive and avoiding capture, an additional $100 for each law enforcement officer or Hunter he kills, and a grand prize of $1 billion if he survives for 30 days. Viewers can receive cash rewards for informing the Network of the runner's whereabouts. The runner is given $4,800 and a pocket video camera before he leaves the studio. He can travel anywhere in the world, and he must videotape two messages each day and mail them to the studio for broadcasting. If he fails to send the messages, he will be held in default of his Games contract and stop accumulating prize money, but will continue to be hunted indefinitely. Killian states that no contestant has survived long enough to claim the grand prize, nor does he expect anyone ever to do so. Richards hopes he will last long enough to secure his family's future with his prize money.
As the game begins, Richards obtains disguises and false identification records, traveling first to New York City, and then to Boston. In Boston, he is tracked down by the Hunters and only narrowly escapes, setting off an explosion in the basement of aYMCA building that kills five police officers. He sneaks away through a sewer pipe and emerges in the city's impoverished ghetto where he takes shelter with gang member Bradley Throckmorton and his family. Richards learns from Bradley that the air is severely polluted and the city's poor have become a permanent underclass. Bradley also says that the Network exists only as a propaganda machine to pacify and distract the public. Richards tries to incorporate this information into his video messages, but finds that the Network dubs over his voice with obscenities and threats during the broadcast.
Bradley smuggles Richards past a government checkpoint to Manchester, New Hampshire, where he disguises himself as a half-blind priest. Bradley then provides Richards with a car and a set of mailing labels for his videotapes that will leave the Network unable to track him by their postmarks. While spending three days in Manchester, Richards learns that another contestant has been killed, and he dreams that Bradley has betrayed him after being tortured. He travels to a safe house owned by a friend of Bradley in Portland, Maine, but is reported by the owner's mother. The police and Hunters pursue Richards, wounding him, but he manages to escape and spends the night sleeping at an abandoned construction site. The following day, after arranging to mail his videotapes, Richards carjacks a woman named Amelia Williams and takes her hostage. Alerting the media to his presence, he makes his way to an airport inDerry. The police confront Richards, but he bluffs his way onto a plane past both them and the lead Hunter, Evan McCone, by pretending to be carrying an explosive charge powerful enough to destroy the entire facility. By now, Richards has broken theRunning Man survival record of 197 hours. The news of Richards' success causes the once complacent and submissive lower class to rise against their elite class oppressors all over the country, the police unable to stop it.
Richards takes McCone and Amelia as hostages and has the plane fly low over populated areas to avoid being shot down by a surface-to-air missile. Killian calls Richards aboard the plane and reveals that he knows Richards has no explosives, as the plane's security system would have detected them. To Richards' surprise, Killian offers him a chance to replace McCone as lead Hunter. Richards hesitates to accept the offer. Killian then informs him that Sheila and Cathy have been dead for over 10 days, murdered by intruders, and gives him some time to make his decision. Richards calls Killian back and accepts the offer with nothing left to lose. After the contact has been severed, he kills the flight crew and McCone, but suffers a mortal gunshot wound from the latter. Richards forces Amelia to jump off the plane with a parachute and then uses the last of his strength to reprogram the autopilot and fly toward the skyscraper serving as the headquarters of the Games Network. The book ends with the plane crashing into the tower, resulting in the deaths of Richards and Killian. The novel closes with the description: "The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away."
The Running Man is the last of four books written by King under the name Richard Bachman before the author's real identity was leaked to the media. These areRage (1977),The Long Walk (1979),Roadwork (1981), andThe Running Man. The four novels were reissued in one volume asThe Bachman Books (1985).[1]
King created "Richard Bachman" to be his long-term alias, not just a temporary writing identity,[2] but shortly after the publication of the fifth Bachman novel,Thinner (1984), King was outed. Although Bachman is now known to be King, he used the pen name for two further novels:The Regulators (1996) andBlaze (2007). He also basedThe Dark Half, a horror novel published in 1989, on Bachman's outing.[2]: 3
King wrote the original draft ofRunning Man in February 1973.[3] According to King's 2002memoirOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he wroteThe Running Man within a single week, compared to his normal 2,000-word or ten-page daily outputs.[4] In "The Importance of Being Bachman", a new introduction to the 1996 edition ofThe Bachman Books, King describesThe Running Man as "a book written by a young man who was angry, energetic, and infatuated with the art and the craft of writing".[2]: 3–4 In the same introduction, King describes Ben Richards as "scrawny" and "pre-tubercular". He observes that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played Ben Richards in the film adaptation ofThe Running Man, portrayed the character very differently than he wrote about him in the book, saying that Richards (in the book) was "as far away from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get".[2]: 4
The novel was adapted into afilm with the same title in 1987, five years after the book was released. The adaptation only retained the general idea of the violent show and a few character names. The film starsArnold Schwarzenegger as Richards.[5][6] The film was latermade into a video game released on several home computer platforms.
A second adaptation of the novel, directed byEdgar Wright and starringGlen Powell, was released in 2025.[7]
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