Ben Richards participates in a game show to save his daughter's life; failure means death.
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Commentary
Citizen-neglecting government. Truth of horrible realism. Self-serving, spiteful nation. These are a few of the themes that are portrayed in Stephen King's novel The Running Man. This action packed thriller is one of King's best novels. There are 100 chapters in The Running Man, and at only 300 pages, there are only three pages in a chapter on average, giving this book an excellent plot and lots of action. There are many characters in the story, but the major character is Ben Richards, who enters a contest in the future in hopes of winning money to buy medicine for his daughter who has an unknown disease. The game is called 'The Running Man' and the game is just as it sounds. The contestants will be set loose onto the world where he will try to survive his enemy - the world. The individual who successfully kills Richards receives ten thousand dollars from the government who runs the series of life-taking game shows including Treadmill to Bucks where heart-attack and stroke prone contestants run until they drop. Ben Richards must survive the horde for one month or die. He lays his trust on no one; doing so will get him killed. He must also survive the hunters, a trained group of people who's jobs are to hunt down and kill the contestants. Richards will do anything, incluiding killing others to survive, if not for the money, then to spite the government. The Running Man is a great book that any thrill-seeker would enjoy. It's a short read, only being about 300 pages, but a good one. -- Scott Gaus,
