@RUTGERS.ARPA:cobb%srvax.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (04/11/85)
From: cobb%srvax.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
Review of 'The Long Walk' by Richard Bachman (Stephen King).
In the America of the future the biggest sporting event of each year is
The Long Walk. Each year 100 of America's finest young men begin a marathon
race. The object of the race is to walk at a pace of at least 4 miles per hour,
if a walker's pace drops below 4 mph he is given a warning. After a warning a
walker has 30 seconds before a second warning is given, so that by speeding
back up to 4+ mph he will avoid another warning. When a walker goes for an hour
at the normal pace 1 warning will be removed. When a walker who has 3 warnings
still current drops below 4 mph he is out of the race, the soldiers who monitor
the race use bullets to put the walker out of the race. The soldiers will also
shoot any walker that tries to run away. The object of the race is to be the
last walker, the survivor gets lots of money and just about anything else he
could ask for.
If this sounds like the plot for 'The Running Man', it's because the plots
have a lot of common ideas. While 'The Running Man' was pulled off nicely by
King, I think that 'The Long Walk' falls short. This book gets real slow in the
middle, sort of a marathon read. Maybe if there were soldiers who gave you a
warning if you dropped below 4 minutes per page. The characters were developed
well, but, I couldn't find myself caring about any of them. I didn't really
hate the book, but, I would only recommend it to hard core Stephen King fans.
I rate this book a 5 (out of ten).
KEN COBB