I just finished reading The Running Man by Stephen King. It was a fantastic book, and I’m unsure why others disagree.

Submitted by ALittleInternet t3_z5wkjs in books

I also watched the movie afterwards, and I prefer the book. I think it was fantastic. Interesting plot, kept me on my toes with each page turn, couldn’t put it down, and had a deserving ending. After looking at some reviews, it seems people compare it against other books by King and as such rate it poorly.

Sure, the futuristic predictions of the year 2025 are pretty bad from 2022’s perspective. But it was written in 1982. No one faults Back to the Future for doing the same thing predicting 2015. So accepting the dystopian technology as a fictional example and rolling with it, I ultimately liked it. It didn’t take away from the book.

The book is brutal; doesn’t hold back, and again, is a page turner. What more can you ask?

RE: the movie, I generally don’t like most movie interpretations of books, except for a few like Harry Potter. They have no choice but to remove so much detail to keep the movie 2 hours long. They use the name of the book to tell a similar but quite different story to make more money. But at it’s core apples and oranges. They’re very different. So that’s what happened with The Running Man. And also The Shining in my opinion. Overall The Running Man was fun to watch I guess, but extremely different than the book, and story-wise the book was better.

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mcolston57 t1_ixye5rq wrote

It is very good, didn’t realize it was panned

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HugoNebula t1_ixyhr84 wrote

I've not seen The Running Man getting worse reviews than any other of the Bachman books, or King's books in general. 3.89 on Goodreads, 4.5/5 on Amazon—where are seeing poor reviews?

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ok_chaos42 t1_ixyqvdn wrote

I think it has more to do with people seeing the movie first, then reading the book. I love The Running Man, it was so good! And that opinion was never colored by seeing the film. Haven't seen it ever, and I read the book over a dozen years ago. Nor do I plan to see it. I love the Governator, don't get me wrong, and his early work is chef's kiss, but I'm not a fan of book adaptations. I will sit there and complain about everything they got wrong or left out and be unable to enjoy the movie. So I leave it alone, and keep loving Bachman's/King's work.

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absynthefairy t1_ixysxa7 wrote

Replying to ok_chaos42 (#705,742)

I'd say you're missing out with the movie. It's so insanely detached from what's in the book you won't even care after the first few minutes, really. Even the rules of the Running Man game are fundamentally deformed to the point where you have to ask, why even bother with an "adaptation"? That being said, it really IS a classic early Arnie film, definitely one of the more entertaining ones. Less depressing dystopia with mothers giving cocaine to their dying toddlers so they wouldn't cry, more one-liners and 80s action heroes.

In addition, if you got a paperback edition in the 2000s in Hungary, which is what I ended up with, the front cover was clearly a close-up picture of Sylvester Stallone. I kind of appreciate that sort of subtle piss-taking.

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Mumbleton t1_ixz1br7 wrote

The movie and the book share a title and the name of the main character. That’s it, and that’s FINE. I love the movie as a dumb Arnold movie. I enjoyed the book as a dystopian romp. It has been probably 25 years since I read it but it does say interesting things about how the media controls the narrative. The ending is of course super dark and feels problematic after a certain event which happened long after the book was published.

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Violet351 t1_ixz2swg wrote

The book was brilliant, I read it a long time ago and it feels that reality tv is heading in that direction. I read it before I saw the film mostly because I don’t think I was old enough to see it at the cinema. I hated the film

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Fandango1978 t1_ixz7w80 wrote

I haven't seen any poor reviews of it unless you include the kind of reviews that miss the point and judge Mr King as if he is, or should be, Mark Twain.

I haven't read it in 20 years, but the scene in the plane when he is "stopped" sticks with me still

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einstruzende t1_ixzf33t wrote

Its a great book. All 4 of those books were great, weren't they originally packaged together with Rage, Longwalk, Roadwork, and Running Man? Loved them all, especially Roadwork.

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aeneasend t1_iy1zhis wrote

Of the negative comments I've seen lately, a lot seem to focus on the more controversial things the character says in the opening interviews, not seeming to notice that later on you find out it was all a calculated move to manipulate the show's production to select him as 'Villain of the People' for their audience to hate.

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