godwin@ICSE.UCI.EDU (11/09/85)
From: Dave Godwin <godwin@ICSE.UCI.EDU> I've been reading quite a bit recently. Between me and a bunch of others, you've seen reviews for Brin's 'Postman', Hogan's 'Proteus Project', Heinlein's 'Cat Who Walks Into Walls', and Adam's 'So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'. Now it's time for a different kind of writing. Enough with the hard stuff already. Steven King gets talked about here now and again, so I figure at least one or two folks out there want to here this. As most of you now know, King has been writing under both his own name and the name Richard Bachman. ( If any of you have old Bachman books, they're worth serious cash, now that the secret is out. ) His fifth Bachman book, Thinner, had it's cover blown by a reader who Found Out, and Bachman died an early death. ( It's a bummer. Bachman was having fun publishing stories that were getting read cuz they were good, not because the were written by Steven King. ) In any case, the first four Bachman books are now out again, under one huge trade sized paperback. I've read the books now, and I've got to say, some is good and some is bad. Such is early writing of any author. So let's look at each of the four: (* YES, THESE HERE ARE MINOR SPOILERS !!!! BEWARE !!!! *) 1. The Long Walk Good story. Weird premice. The Long Walk is the sporting event of the year. You start with a group of 100 contestants. Once the Walk begins, it does not stop until only one contestant is left. If you leave the Route, the soldiers will shoot you. If you drop below four miles an hour, they will shoot you. If you stop moving for any reason at all, they will shoot you. The last man standing gets the Prize. Very well written from a character point of view. 2. Rage Damn good story. Psychological drama of best kind: believable. I actually found myself rooting for the protagonist in a few places. No more will be said for this one. 3. Roadwork Blah !, Agghhh, Bleeah !!. Don't waste your time. 4. The Running Man. Maybe King had a thing for game shows in his early years, I don't know. This story is set in a future in which most people have no hope. Government run game shows provide daily entertainment. You can win money on these shows, if you are lucky, but you usually just get hurt, or damaged or possibly dead. This is told from a sort of humorous standpoint, so it really ain't so morbid as it seems. The Running Man is the show where they give you 1000 dollars survival money, and an eight hour head start. You are freed into society to run and hide. The Hunters will then track you down and kill you, if they can ( on camera, of course ). For every hour of freedom you Run, your dependants get $xx.xx cash. For every Hunter you waste, you get a bonus of $xx.xx more. And, if you make it past the 30 day mark, you get a big bonus, and they stop chasing you. The longest any contestant has Run is 17 days. The Running Man is the story of one of these contestants. The story starts slowly, does damn well for most of it's Run, and then loses completely in the last few pages. I mean, Lose, Lose, Lose. As a whole, the story comes close to making it, but falls dead a few feet from doing so. Oh well. On the whole, if you be a Steven King liker, get this book and read it. If you are not a King person, go buy something else. If you've got $10 to take a risk on, maybe just maybe you should try this book, but don't yell at me for recommending it to you, cuz I didn't. So does anybody wanna fes up to reading Thinner ? Dave Godwin University of California, Irvine