Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(84)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The true identify of Richard Bachman did not get out until the publication of Thinner, Bachman's fifth book. These first four Bachman novels were the sorts of books you might find in a grocery store or - more likely - never have come across at all because they weren't really marketed at all - at Stephen King's request. Naturally, they didn't sell all that well - not until the true author was revealed, of course. These represent an interesting cross-section of King's writing life. Rage and The Long Walk are truly early King novels, Roadwork emerged in between the novels 'Salem's Lot and The Shining, and The Running Man was published in 1982, the product of a mere seventy-two hours of writing. They are quite different novels, yet they all share a common theme - a man displaced by society and doing what he can to combat the forces closing in around him.

This collection is about the only place you can find the novel Rage these days. After the Columbine tragedy, Stephen King basically had all copies of Rage pulled from the shelves. The novel features a high school student who wigs out, shoots two teachers, and holds his class hostage for several hours. The real heart of the story is the way the students react to their captor during their ordeal; they go way beyond merely sympathizing with him. King really breaks down the emotional walls of these characters, mining some of the real issues that teenagers have to deal with in their lives. To me, this novel is raw but instructive, surreal yet amazingly open and honest, and well worth reading.

If you ask me, The Long Walk (written while King was a college freshman) may well be the most fascinating novel King has ever written. It's a disarmingly simple tale centered on a seemingly mundane activity, yet in King's masterful hands The Long Walk burrows into the core of a number of characters, lays down miles of metaphors about the human condition, and absolutely mesmerizes you with its emotional force and power. The contestants (all but one of whom will die - and they know it) do a lot of talking while they're walking; most of them dance around the "why" issue, but we see clues to some of the reasons as each lad draws closer and closer to death. Cockiness turns to anger, fear, shock, and just about every other kind of dark emotion you can imagine. The boys are stripped bare in both body and mind as the Walk goes on and on. Through his characters, King is basically asking the reader how he/she will face death when it comes. Will you freeze up early on? How long will you fight to stay alive after you've pushed your body far beyond the breaking point? Will you lie down and accept your fate, or will you lose control and lash out at your perceived enemies? I could read this novel over and over again without ever growing tired of it. It's just endlessly fascinating and illuminating.

Roadwork represented an attempt on King's part to go straight, to prove he could write a mainstream novel. In its essence, Roadwork is the story of a man pushed beyond his means of coping with change. We the readers basically watch Bart Dawes go insane as the days pass. We watch him lie to his wife and to himself, drink himself into nightly stupors, procure destructive objects from dangerous men, and plot revenge on those who have taken away the few things in life he could cling to. At the center of his problem is his son Charlie, who died of a brain tumor three years earlier; George can't understand why his son had to die, and he can't bear the thought of his home, Charlie's home, being destroyed. Even as we watch Dawes do some terrible things, we can't help but sympathize with a man so beaten down by the cruel vagaries of life. King has said that Roadwork was in some ways a product of the death of his mother. The book served as a vehicle to let him work through his own emotional issues over his loss. Why does a loved one have to die? That question permeates this novel. It's a very personal story, but it is one almost any adult reader can relate to very well. It's a surprisingly impressive exploration of emotional disintegration.

With The Running Man, we have a complete novel that was written in only three days - and was published with almost no changes. Obviously, The Running Man is not your typical Stephen King novel. Action is the gas pedal, and King floored it from page one until the very end. Surprisingly, though, there is some pretty decent characterization of the main player - and a heavy undertone of social commentary worked into the book.

The setting is a future America in which society has totally fractured, leaving those on the wrong side of the tracks doomed to a life of misery. Ben Richards personifies that social inequity. Unable to provide for his wife and sick little girl, there is only one way out for him - the Network Games. No show satisfies the bloodlust of the public like The Running Man, and a man of Richards' temperament is just the kind of player the show is looking for. Richards proves himself a worthy contestant indeed - the Game in fact, will never be the same. To me, this novel is like a weak film adaptation of a King novel - stripped of all the nuances that make King such a special writer. That's not to way this isn't an exciting novel because it is - that's about all it is, though.

It makes me somewhat angry that a book like Rage has to be shelved because of an incident like Columbine. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time, a book I would tell other to read in an instant, but I can't. The novel has been pushed in to oblivion because it deals with a school shooting. Yes, it deals with teenagers being violent, and blowing up emotionally, and then it also deals with them coming to grips with everything, realizing who they are. That may be what disturbes most people about this book. When they realize who they are, what they realize is far from pretty. But at no point did the story feel forced. Everything these teens said fit with their characters. Everything they did fit with what was being thrown at them.

Do I think this book is dangerous? Not at all! It actually shows the danger of holding your fears and problems inside. That's why Charlie went crazy. He held everything inside, just so he could conform to the norm. And conforming led him to something... well, read the book and find out. That's why, in the end, everything works out in it's own twisted way. And yes, this book is twisted. Very twisted. But not dangerous. What happens in the end was was truelly frightening though. If you can get your hands on a copy, grab it. You'll never be able to put the book down. The pace is fast, the story is amazing, and the characters are so well thought out that you'll feel that you may have actually known them. This is one of King's best books.

The Bachman Books were a way for Stephen King to write a different style under a psuedonym. Under the Richard Bachman pen name, King has managed to paint a bleak but realistic world (unlike the supernatural landscape of 'Salem's Lot and The Stand)).

Rage:

This book is about a young teenager named Charlie Decker. He's like any ordinary kid but he has a problem.

His childhood has turned him into an angry sociopath who's unable to cope with life and does the most drastic thing he could think of, he holds his Algebra class hostage. Let the mind games begin!

Long Walk:

In a futuristic America, a totalitarian government has taken over. To placate the population, a dictator known as The Major presides over a deadly game of endurance call The Long Walk. 100 teenage boys are selected to participate. The winner gets set up for life, the rest are left for dead.

Roadwork:

A hard working joe who's life is turned upside down when his home is selected for demolition. A sour relationship, a voice in his head and a new rifle make a terrible combination. When the fuzz come around that's when the fun begins.

Running Man:

Another bleak tale about a media and consumer driven society (sounds familiar). The growning have-nots are greatly out numbering the haves. One of the many have nots (Benjiman Richards) decides to help out his sick child and part-time prostitute wife by becoming a Free-Vee games contestant. Along the way, he learns and is tranformed into something he never thought he was capable of becoming.

An awesome collection of short novels. I higly recommended this novel. You'll never regret it.

Wow. I am amazed by these stories that Stephen King wrote so early in his carreer. They are all impressive and well written. They all have lasting impact. The first two are excellent psychological thrillers, complete with plenty of interesting philosophy. The third is a slow moving, character analysis of a schizophrenic. The final story is a fast moving action story. All of the stories are excellent.

Rage(5/5)- This is the reason that you won't be finding this anthology in stores. This story is about a school shooting incident. In it, a boy named Charlie Decker takes over his class after shooting his math teacher. I know it sounds ludacrously violent, but it isn't. There aren't many deaths, but alot of excitement and plenty of philosophy. It is told from the first-person (unusual for King) point of view of a killer. You get to watch his sanity slowly slip away. Very intriguing.

The Long Walk(5/5)- A tie with Rage for my favorite Bachman Book. This one involves a grim future in the style of my favorite book, 1984. In this grim, 1984-esque, future, there is a marathon held every year with 100 boys starting off on the U.S.-Canada border and they simply walk. If they go below 4mph for 30 seconds they recieve a warning. If they walk for one hour without a fresh warning they lose an old warning. If they acumulate three warnings, then stop again, they recieve a ticket a.k.a. a bullet in the head. This is the story of one walker - Ray Garraty - who enters the contest. He and others, including Pete McVries, Hank Olson, Art Baker, Barkovitch, and Stebbins. A bit predictable, but haunting and disturbing.

Roadwork(4/5)- This one is interesting. It isn't the best in the collection, but it is still an excellent story. It is a character analysis of a schizophrenic man pushed over the verge. The stoy involves a man named Bart whose house and business are threatened by a new construction project. He speaks to his dead son Charlie in his head. It should be known that in these conversations, Bart is George and Charlie is Fred (they called each other by their middle names).

The Running Man(4/5)- A fast paced story about a game show in the future where a man tries to avoid assassins. It is similar to The Long Walk just as Roadwork is similar to Rage. I like it, I just wish it had more of the philosophy that the others had. This one would be the best for young or immature readers while Roadwork would be really good for serious readers.

All in all it is an excellent anthology filled with
(disturbing moments)
Great storytelling. I really liked King's characterization and philosophy. The stories are fairly short and can each be read in a single sitting (except maybe Roadwork). Read 'em. Ponder 'em. Love 'em.

It's been a while since I read this, but I remember all of the stories being pretty good. I'm only weighing in here to point out that it was Stephen King himself who censored this book. In a speech to a library association, which you can read at , King states that after his book (specifically the story called "The Rage") had been mentioned in connection with 2 school shootings, and the FBI requested an interview with King, he called his publisher and asked them to take it out of print. While this is unfortunate censorship that King may have been driven to, he ultimately censored himself.

These stories were written by a young King, before many of his more well-known works were published. After reading The Bachman Books, it is easy to see the talent Mr. King possessed at an early age.

Rage is the reason this book is sought-after, and it won't disappoint most readers. It is a great study of social cliques, adolescent psychology, and shifts of power. The controversy surrounding the story may lead people to misguided expectations. This is not a story with huge body counts of high-school students and faculty. My second-favorite story in the book.

The Long Walk is a brilliant character study. Possibly a metaphor for the Vietnam War (my personal opinion there, not necessarily King's), this story focuses on a handful of "walkers" participating in a field of 100. Rules are simple and are enforced strictly. Characters meet sides of themselves they never knew they possessed when faced with situations you wouldn't normally encounter. This story alone is worth seeking out this book. I'd place The Long Walk right up there with other King short stories like The Mist, The Raft, 1408, The Body, and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

Roadwork, although my least favorite of the four, still has its place. It is also a character study, but after reading The Long Walk any story would have a tough act to follow. You can empathize with the main charcter even as he slips into madness and King writes him in a way that you almost root for him.

The Running Man was a pleasant surprise. I'd seen the film that was LOOSELY based on the story (and by loosely, I mean the character name, the reality game show, and the future dystopia is about it) and altough I enjoyed it I soon realized that the story was infinitely better (isn't that usually the case?). The story paints a very bleak, not-too-distant future where the haves and have-nots are separated to an extreme that frighteningly may not be that far off. Our protagonist runs in order to help his family, and the hunters seeking him aren't rejects from the WWE. It's about a man pushed to his limits and how he's forced to choose his victories.

It's spooky how King wrote two stories in this book about futuristic reality game shows, and today these shows--although not nearly as extreme as King's versions--are so popular and prevalent. All the stories are worth reading and a couple of them are excellent. If you can locate a copy of this book I strongly suggest picling it up.

Leave it to the good old blame shifting citizens of the United States to get a great book pulled from the shelves for reasons of "inappropriate content", denying citizens of their country that little old thing known as the First Amendment, which is exactly what has happened with Rage, the first in the series of Bachman Books chronicling Stephen King's early work under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story's prophecy of the school shootings which plagued America through the 90's is chilling to say the least, but the message it carries is the one that supporters of censorship are truly afraid of. Rage tells the story of a high school boy whose abusive father, torment by a school bully, and increasing isolation towards a society which shuns his individuality goes on a shooting spree on one spring morning, killing two teachers and holding the rest of his class hostage while engaging in a standoff with the police. What ensues in the classroom is an exploration of character and motive, as not only Charlie, the main character, learns about his constantly decaying mental state, but also his classmates engage in a twisted and horrifyingly honest group confession as to their sins of sex, abuse, broken homes, and other timebombs ticking inside of their heads which often hit a little too close to home to be comfortable. Charlie may be the criminal whose torments have finally exploded into a storm of violent rage, but we soon see that the rest of the students are driven by the same undercurrent of dissatisfaction with everyday life, and their minds are not so different from the one who holds them captive. Of course, due to situations like Columbine, this story has to be flamed by critics and "caring parents" alongside any and every rated R movie and anything that falls into the rock and roll category, especially if that character is Marilyn Manson, whose message serves only to fall upon the deaf ears of those who do not want to admit what is really wrong with society. God forbid anyone question that bad parenting, relentless bullying, and a shamefuly society which shuns any sense of uniqueness could possibly be responsible for the tragedies like Columbine, but I guess it's easier to blame rock music and Stephen King than to admit that something in America just isn't right in schools and in homes.

The rest of the book follows in equally disturbing form, although none of the other three stories were apparently hitting close enough to the homefront to merit Fahrenheit 451 style rippings from the pages of American literature. Although the tales spun are not the same type of horror as King would become a world class storyteller for, such as The Shining and Carrie, all of them deal with a much more frightening subject; the terrors of the psychological, which while we may be able to escape the monsters under the bed and in the closet in real life, the demons of the mind are very much real and the characters and their struggles in all the stories are too real to not be able to relate to.

Roadwork is an exceptional story about a man named Barton Dawes, who after losing his beloved son to an inoperable brain tumor, gradually slips through the fingers of sanity's clutches, throwing away his job, his wife, and his life in a self destructive spiral when the last straw is finally used to break the camel's back; a city ordinance his determined he must leave his home so that it may be torn down to build a new highway. Dawes' slow slip into depression and contemplation of suicide is painful to read, and anyone who has been on the losing end of life will find solace and tears in one of King's most heartbreaking stories.

The Long Walk and The Running man are also stellar, the former being in my opinion some of King's best writing. The Long Walk is the competition of the future, where 100 boys aged 16 to 18 begin walking at the border of Maine and Canada, moving south to an undetermined destination. Having to constantly walk above 4 miles per hour, which is monitored by advanced computer systems tracking speed and body temperature, every time anyone slows down they are brushing with death. Three warnings are given, one for each time a contestant drops below the 4 mph mark, after the third the unfortunate participant being dragged off the road and executed with high powered rifles being operated by a constant military guard whose ruthlessness is inhuman. The story begins with each of the boys feeling confident, enjoying the competition, and trying to hold his own while he slowly watches his fellow walkers die horrible deaths in front of their very eyes, but soon human nature sets in and friendships begin to form, made all the more tragic by the boys realization that all but one of them must die and in order to win, they must walk their friends down into a storm of bullets. The psychological undertones are amazingly brutal, and it makes one question what YOU would do in the same situation, just how long you could push your body beyond its breaking point.

The Running Man is great but is the weakest offering here, telling the story of a man participating on a gameshow in which he must flee across the country from an army of mercenaries whose sole purpose is to violently dispose of him on national television. His purpose in winning is only to get his family out of the ghetto and cure his daughter of a life threatening flu, but tell that to the American TV zombies who so accurately reflect the ones in real life, who only want to see Ben Richards, the contestant have his guts splattered across the screen. The relation to our society with its reality TV bombardment of brain cell killers is unsettling, to say the least.

What all of these stories are held together by is a string of social commentary, the villain being the perverted TV driven society which will settle for nothing less than bloodshed for entertainment and the corporate, clone-like system of America which will push any indiviual who dares oppose the flock of sheep into their breaking points. Thankfully all of the characters have the will to fight back in all of these stories, which means there is hope. But the bleak endings which all of them will eventually reach provides a more frightening and realistic outcome that the individual simply cannot win, try as he may.

Rage is out of print but the other three books can be found in most bookstores. I was fortunate enough to find a used copy at a bookstore many years ago and have read and reread all of them several times, picking up new things upon every inspection. Despite the authors humbleness towards the stories, probably due to them being written so early on in his career, they are all truly shining points in his career. Try and seek out the whole collection if you can, if not buy the individual stories which are still thankfully available, and I promise you will enjoy every last page turn.

Once again, this brilliant author has brought forth a collection of stories which prove that he does not simply write horror, and that his boundaries go far and wide. Unfortunately, it's hard to find all four of these novellas in a complete collection, due to censorship reasons, but if you can get your hands on all of them in this single volume, I would advise you not to hesitate. Built up from four different stories; "Rage", "The Long Walk", "Roadwork", and "The Running Man", King has expanded on his ability to examine the human mind and the very essence of sanity in "Rage" and "Roadwork", while looking at the future in a new light that seems too possible, almost to the point of terrifying in "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man".

The first novella, "Rage", is the one and only reason that it is so difficult to find all four of these stories in a single volume, being the only one that wasn't re-printed and individually published. Banned from bookshelves due to censorship, this story seems to prophesize down to the finest points all the tragic school shootings which have taken place, even though it was written in the 1970's, far before such a thing was hyped up. Based around the main character Charlie Decker, the reader watches as his sanity slowly slips away and drives him to execute teachers at his high school, resulting in taking his math class hostage in a vicious standoff with the police force. Although the story may sound violent, predictable, and inappropriate depending on your opinion, it proves to be more than just violence and mindless bloodshed. As the class is held hostage, both Charlie and his classmates engage in a series of flashbacks and events looking back on life, each learning something about themselves. A very good read, by far, which should be re-printed. If censorship starts here, where does it end?

"The Long Walk", which follows "Rage", is definitely the best of these four stories, and one of the two based around futuristic game shows played on violence, simply to entertain the brainwashed masses of America (along with "The Running Man"). The rules of the game shown in the story are simple. One hundred boys from the ages of 14-18 are to begin walking at the U.S/Canada border. With chronometers attached to them, they are to keep their pace above 4 miles an hour at all times. Every time one of them drops under this pace, they are issued a warning. If, after three warnings, the pace drops again, the boy is executed by soldiers armed with high-powered carbine rifles. The suspense and constant wondering of who is going to die next haunts this tale. As the plot thickens and the game starts to enter it's second and third day of straight walking, empathy sets in and the reader feels like they are among the characters, back and feet in pain from the constant work. One thing which is not mentioned about this story much is the Vietnam metaphor, reflecting how the country sends their best young men off to die, only a small number ever to return, and then pushed beyond their sanity if they survive long enough. Various other metaphors exist, but are purely speculative.

The third novella, "Roadwork", was excellent, but my least favorite of all. All of the plot revolves around the main characters fall from sanity, just as in "Rage". Barton Dawes, the main character, watches as the government tries to tear his house down to build a freeway extension, his only child dies from a brain tumor, he loses his job, his wife leaves him, and he is left with no options. The story moves too slowly at first, and their isn't much action until the final pages of climax, but the characters are believable and the plot is original, similar to the film "Falling Down". The only real complaint is the fact that the story is extremely long, but only about the last 10 pages, give or take, are used to show the final steps of Barton's sanity disappearing. However, don't let that stop you. After getting into it, the story really grabs you, whether it's loaded with action or not.

"The Running Man" finishes off this volume, telling the tale of Ben Richards, a poor man whose little girl is dying of pneumonia, as he enters a game show where he has 30 days to flee bounty hunters across the world, with all of society able to turn him in for money. If he is caught, he is brutally executed to entertain middle class America on television. If he escapes the whole 30 days, there is a billion dollar jackpot waiting for him. The end is completely unpredictable and keeps you in constant suspense. If you're going to compare it to the film, don't bother. The film is good action, but weak compared to this. The story simply grabs you in the first paragraph and doesn't let go, even after the ending.

All four stories are excellent, even though the endings of "Rage" and "Roadwork" are a bit predictable. As far as "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man" go, they are some of the best suspense you'll ever read. Looking at modern television, with "survival" game-shows such as "Survivor", "The Mole", and "Bootcamp", along with a million other clones, the reality of game shows based around death seems all too near. Frightening and exhilarating to think about. A must-have for any King fan.

[This review was also posted under the Amazon.com listing of the original 1977 paperback edition of Rage]

The most interesting thing about "Rage" is its history: Stephen King began writing this novel his senior year in high school, finished it in 1971, and published it as an original paperback in 1977 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Years later, after it became public knowledge that Stephen King and Richard Bachman were one and the same, it was republished in hardcover as part of an omnibus titled THE BACHMAN BOOKS, which contained the first four novels published under the Bachman penname (there were six in all). In the years since, all the Bachman novels have been reprinted as separate paperbacks--all except Rage. In response to the recent school shooting tragedy at Columbine High School (and the anti-media backlash it caused), King decided to pull Rage out of print, forever. He is afraid its depiction of school violence will further 'glorify' such acts of aggression.

The story itself has some obvious flaws: the plot is cliched (although, to be fair, school violence was not as common in 1977); the students in the story do not act realistically (at least, they didn't act like real students in similar situations have acted); and at times the dialogue seems wooden (not like King's modern writing at all). Still, King was good enough even back then that you could see some real talent under the surface of the teen angst. He is a master at turning a situation on its head. By the end of the 130-page book, I found myself rooting for Charlie, the troubled teen who kills his teacher and holds his classmates hostage. And I was solidly aligned against the forces of good--the cops, the psychiatrists, & the parents. On the whole, the book certainly held my interest, and it was sort of fun looking back and seeing how Stephen King, the most successful commercial writer of all time, got started.

I received this book in high school as a gift and it really struck a chord. I was surprised to read that it is no longer published because of incidents concerning Rage. King always seems to get it right, was he a geek in HS too? I have since ordered the book again, surely I lent it out to someone who didn't appreciate it as much as I did, and I plan on rereading the whole book again.