The Bachman Books: Rage, the Long Walk, Roadwork, the Running Man by Stephen King

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Author: Stephen King
Release date: October, 1996
Media: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 0451191935

Four King klassics.

The Bachman Books, four short novels written by Stephen King in the late 70's under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, feature King at the very top of his form. He used the pen-name to exhibit a grittier, more controlled, less metaphysical style of writing. Each story is different in tone and texture but all deal with the recurring theme of endurance . . . either physical or mental or usually both. Here's a run down on each one:

RAGE
A story so good it allegedly spawned an actual copycat killing of the same nature in Spokane, Washington in 1996. In it, a student hovering on the edge of madness walks into class one day with a gun and shoots his teacher dead and holds the class hostage. What ensues is a dead-on examination of the brutal teen Moulinex known as high school. While the cast of characters may seem like cliches, with the jock, the pretty-girl, and the school slut, each one is fully fleshed-out into a living, breathing person. And as our narrator takes his classmates along the winding path of parental neglect that leads to the incident, it's the best kind of writing where you know the authour is describing his own flirtation with insanity.

THE LONG WALK
A science-fiction tale, but as usual with King's dabbles in this genre, it has less to do with science and more to do with the human condition. In the near future (this I'm assuming, as SK doesn't let such minor details like the actual date get in the way of the storytelling in this one), 100 young men are entered in a footrace called The Long Walk. The winner gets anything his heart desires. The losers get death. It's like a pedestrian 'Speed' . . . if your pace drops below 4 mph four times, they shoot you. And so, in this closed microcosm, the contestants form bands of friendships, which slowly shake apart as the road takes its toll on them. As we near the end of the line, we're almost as physically and emotionally exhausted as the walkers themselves.

ROADWORK
A clinical study of quiet insanity. Barton Dawes is a man with a nice house, good job and a loving wife. But he throws it all away when construction of a highway extension tags his house for demolition, along with the memories of his young son who died of a brain tumor. The sense of dread and inevitability as Dawes lets his responsibilities to his wife and co-workers swirl down the drain is almost palpable, and the ending is nothing short of cathartic as Dawes confronts the city bureaucrats with a little roadwork on his own terms.

THE RUNNING MAN
Don't let the god-awful movie colour your opinion on the story on which it was 'based', this is a lean, mean chase-thriller which also deals with the themes of mankind's lust for blood, a government out of control, and the struggle of an underclass society. Another psuedo-science-fiction tale, a man runs for his life on a futuristic game-show run by an all-powerful 'free-vee' network out to pacify society and rid itself of possible troublemakers. King tries a little harder with the SF elements in this one, creating an oppressive environment choking on its own commercialized excess. But as runner Ben Richards keeps one step ahead of the hunters, the quiet nobility of a disenfranchised society risking all to aid him gives hope to the future in the novel.

So aside from a slightly disturbing racist tone throughout the stories, the novels hold the same incredible power even 20 years after they were first published. Stephen King has rarely been as adept at prying up the lid of society and showing us the worms of insanity wriggling below. - an Amazon customer review

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