Hello Beautiful People! Welcome to another Baddie Book Review!
This is the second Richard Bachman-style Stephen King book I’ve been able to dive into. I read The Long Walk a little while ago and really enjoyed it, let me know if you guys would be interested in a review on that one because I’d love to do it. I really enjoyed The Running Man and I will say that I liked the ending of The Running Man a bit more than the long walk (the two kinda have a similar theme) which may make me a morbid person.
I give this book a 8/10!
*Some disclaimers/warnings for future readers*
– Includes murder
– Includes racism
Band of Characters:
- Ben Richards: Competitor on The Running Man
- Sheila Richards: Ben’s wife
- Dan Killian: Games Network Executive Producer
- Bradley Throckmorton: Friend of Bens
- Evan Macone: Lead Hunter
- Amelia Williams: Gets dragged into the mess
Something unique that King did for this book is he wrote the chapters in a countdown form starting …minus 100 and counting… which eludes to something happening when we hit zero.
We first meet Ben Richards as he’s in his home watching the free-vee. The free-vee is a government-run TV that’s installed in every household. It runs the games network constantly which is filled with violent and horrendous games. The games are essentially human sacrifices for money and societal enjoyment. Ben and his wife Sheila’s daughter Cathy is very ill. Due to a lack of work, the family has no money to pay for the medication that would help her heal. Shelia offers that she can do some prostitution work to get the money but Ben discourages her from doing so. Ben decides he is going to be a contestant on one of the game’s network shows in order to win the family money. Sheila protests this but Ben insists it’s the only option. Shelia sadly watches him go off, knowing that he won’t ever be coming back.
Okay, can I just say that King wrote this in 1982 and well sir… This book hits so hard due to it all being so real. I mean prostitution is the oldest profession, it’s one that has withstood the tests of time. This is because no matter the era, no matter the time, women have always been negatively affected by the patriarchal society. I think women who make the decision to go into sex work and are able to have all the safeguards in place to protect themselves are actually more rare than common, most women don’t go into sex work because they want to. The abuse on the pharmaceutical market is very prevalent to this day. Why does insulin cost hundreds of dollars? Why do epi-pens cost hundreds of dollars? It makes no sense. To top it all off all of our TVs are filled with grown men beating each other in the name of ‘sport’ despite the lifelong mental and physical effects it has on these people. Yet we all act like it’s normal. When he wrote this in 1982 he placed the book in 2023, so I think we can all say that this book is pretty on the nose to what we deal with now.
Ben arrives at the game’s network building and is sent through different tests to determine if he would qualify and for what game. Eventually, he gets to the end of the testing and is sent up an elevator different from everyone else. He’s brought into a room with Dan Killian who says he is the director of the games network and has chosen Ben to be on The Running Man. The Running Man is one of the most popular shows. It’s got the most dangerous game vibes in which Ben essentially tries to hide while Hunters try to kill him. Every day he escapes them he earns money, if he kills one, or a cop, he earns money. As he goes about the world though citizens can call in his location if they see him for rewards. So essentially it’s him against the world. Killian tells him that he believes he will bring in big ratings. He tells Ben he can have whatever he wants before the show, and Ben requests alcohol. It reminded me of what they do for death row inmates I mean obviously last meals for them can’t include alcohol but it’s essentially the same thing in which they try to treat them a bit human before killing them.
Richards spends the next few days drinking himself sick, and then eventually it is time for him to do his first interview. When Ben is ushered into the room with all the games network people he doesn’t exactly turn on the charm which like can you blame him? I would be rude as hell too. Ben is told about his requirements to earn his money. He has to send in two video updates a day while he is on the run. If he doesn’t he loses all of his money. Ben is dolled up and brought on stage. He sees that they have photos displayed of Sheila in which they have edited her face to look more perfect, and they have edited her onto a naked body. Ben goes crazy on stage in anger which makes for a good show for the people. He flashed a middle finger to the crowd which made the people hate him. Once he’s off the stage Killian congratulates him on a fine job. Interestingly before the two part ways, Killian warns Ben to “stick to his people’ meaning the lower income people. Killian essentially tells him that these are the only people that will protect him.
I thought the game’s network portrayal of Sheila was really interesting. The government wanted to rile people up to hate Ben more so they needed to perceive to people that his wife was an unsavoury woman. If they showed the real her they would see an average everyday wife and mom that wouldn’t make the people angry, what does make them angry is seeing the things that they want in themselves in lower income people. The game’s network must have known it would upset him too considering how much he spoke about how he was doing this for her and their child.
Ben is given money, and a camera and sent on his way. He has a 12-hour head start from the hunters and then they are coming for them. Ben seems to know someone who can provide him with a disguise and documents (kinda convenient to know someone like this but oh well) to start him off. He gets a hotel room a shoots his first video. Ben realizes that it’s unfair he has to send the videos in the mail because it will give them an idea of where he is. Even though Killian said that they don’t show these things to the hunters that’s a bit hard to believe. That wouldn’t be fun for the people if he was actually able to totally hide from the hunters.
Ben checks into a YMCA in Boston but quickly realizes he’s being tracked when more and more cops start to show up at the building. Ben gets the cops to follow him into the basement of the building where he sets off an explosion killing them, as he escapes in a sewer pipe. When Ben gets out of the sewer he finds himself in a lower income neighbourhood in Boston. He meets Stacey a seven-year-old who brings him back to his house to meet his family. He meets Stacey’s older brother, Bradley, the boy’s mom and their sister Casey. Ben stays with the family and finds out that 5-year-old Casey has lung cancer. The cancer is caused by the excessive pollution in the air. Bradley and Ben talk about nose filters and how only the rich can afford them. Bradley says he and his crew have a stolen library card and Bradley used it to learn how to build his own nose filters. In order to have a library card you have to prove a guaranteed income that only the rich can reach. Bradley tells Ben that the government uses the free-vee to distract people from what’s really going on in the world. This whole section of the book is so earie in the way it links up to what’s going on today. I mean we can all see that the world is falling apart on an environmental level (really every level). Those who have contributed most the downfall of our environment aren’t the poor it’s the disgustingly rich. Yet who suffers the most from climate change and the issues it creates? The poor. I mean it’s just so damn on the nose for the current world! The government constantly tries to distract us with stupid things so we don’t pay attention to the real issues.
Bradley agrees to help Ben get further away despite the huge risk it causes him and his family. Ben tries to mail in a video of him talking about the pollution issues so it will hit a larger scale but the games network dubs him over saying just stupid things, not at all his original message. Along with this, the public is disgusted with Ben for killing the cops and he is catching a lot of heat. I found this part so interesting because the games network pays him more money for every cop and hunter he kills yet presents him as this terrible person for doing so. It’s pretty parallel to reality TV today. Reality TV calls for drama, betrayal, and hurt feelings, and when this happens everyone picks a side and someone to hate. Yet if these things didn’t happen in the shows we wouldn’t watch.
Bradley helps Ben get a new disguise and escape further. Ben soon after has a dream that Bradley is being tortured by the hunters in order to find out where Ben is. Ben goes to a friend of Bradley’s Elton Parrakis in the hopes of having a safe space to stay. Elton is all for helping him but his mother is crazy and calls the police on Ben. Elton helps him escape the house but the two get in a nasty car crash and Ben is hurt bad from the crash and also has a gunshot wound from the hunters. Ben is able to escape and ends up carjacking a woman named Amelia Williams. Amelia is upper class and her and Ben butt heads fiercely. Ben tells Amelia to take him to the airport. Amelia is convinced that the police and hunters will protect her and do what Ben wants in order to spare her life. However when she tells them Ben’s demands they shoot at the vehicle anyway despite the fact that they would kill her along with Ben. I thought this part was interesting because Amelia assumed that just because she was rich and not poor like Ben they would care for her life more than his. Her life in exchange for his was worth it for them as long as they got Ben. It’s funny because when they shoot she is shocked and horrified and realizes that her life isn’t cared for any more than Ben at all. Now that Amelia knows that she may die too she does what Ben asks so that she can also live. Ben tells Amelia to lie to the police and tell them that he had a bomb and if he wasn’t given what he was asked he would set it off.
***STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT THE ENDING SPOILED***
Ben is able to convince his way onto a plane where he takes Amelia, and the lead hunter Evan McCone hostage on the plane. Ben requests the plane to fly around the city, low so he can’t get shot down and buys time. Killian video calls Ben on the plane. He tells Ben that Ben has been the best they have seen in a long time. He outplayed McCone and they want him to become the new lead Hunter. Killian then tells Ben that his wife and daughter have been dead for 10 days, before he competed, so he has nothing to lose. Killian says the games network had nothing to do with the deaths but Ben isn’t sure if he believes it. Killian said they were both stabbed multiple times. Ben said he would think about it. The next day he tells Killian he accepts. Instead Ben kills McCone and the flight crew, allows Amelia to jump off with a parachute, and overrides the plane. The book ends with Ben looking Killian in the face as he sits in his office at the game’s network building as Ben flies the plane into it.
I feel like the games network killed Ben’s family. I mean it could have been people looking for money as Killian insinuated but I think it was them. The games network would have a win-win if they could kill Ben for profit, convince Ben to do it by offering money, only to kill the people who would receive the money when he dies. Although I didn’t like that Ben died I do like this ending because he gets to go out giving the middle finger (literally) to the government. They took his whole life from him and made sure his family would stay poor and suffer so he would have to join the game, so he ended the fun for them. It’s just a satisfying story in which the hero we all wanted to win kind of does. I think it also just further pushes the message that the government doesn’t care about its citizens, definitely not as much as they like to make it seem. They care about profit, and being on top, and it doesn’t matter who has to die or suffer to get there. It also speaks to how the rich always just get richer and the poor just get poorer and sadly there’s no real solution to it all.
I really recommend this book to anyone who likes to look for extra messages in writing. The book got my thoughts running lots on all sorts of different topics and made me think about what the deeper message would be.
I hope you enjoyed this book review and I would love to hear your thoughts, and what you thought of the book if you have ever read it! Feel free to check out my Instagram @baddie book review to keep up to date for when I release a new review.
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