I have never delved into any of these novels before, and I have no inkling of what each story entails, except for Rage. It was the discussions surrounding Rage that initially led me to this book. I'm planning to read Rage last, approaching each of these stories without any preconceived notions.

A Long Walk: I had no idea what this was about, but as I read it, I felt completely exhausted. Just imagining the boys dragging their feet forward, one after the other, hoping that the bullet wouldn't find them, and trying not to hope that they would actually make it... It was an incredibly visceral experience and far better than The Hunger Games, a much more modern dystopian novel. It's astonishing that the entire story takes place during the walk, but Bachman/King has a remarkable way of writing characters that draws you right into their world. Although this is not the first novel in this collection, it's the one I started with. I think it was a great introduction to this collection.

Road Work: This one was just okay. While I thought the last 100 or so pages were much stronger than the earlier parts of the story, I had a hard time liking Bart. But to be honest, Bart was insane. However, as the story progressed, he became more comfortable with the fact of his insanity and, if possible, was thinking clearly about it and realizing what he truly wanted. I was so confused when I started the book because he was talking to characters that weren't there and they were calling him different names. I was like, what on earth is going on here? But it had a very slow start, and the combination of a slow start and confusion meant that I had a hard time getting into this story. Ultimately, I thought the book built slowly but inevitably to the end, and I think Bart was very pleased with how it ended. Oddly enough, I liked Maglione, and I found the counsel given by him and the ex-padre to be quite interesting, which helped me understand Bart a lot more. I'm kind of curious what it would be like to reread this now that I have a much better idea of what's going on.

The Running Man: This one was another winner for me. Maybe it's because King does such a great job with dystopian novels and the underdog against the world? I had not read the story or seen the movie before, so other than knowing it was set in a futuristic world, I didn't know much about this story. I find it interesting that it's in a collection with another dystopian novel by Bachman, where the main protagonist is fighting for a better life by competing in an extreme life-or-death competition for that tiny chance at improving his lot in life. What caught my eye about this book is that Bachman is already making some commentary about the people on the margins, the poor, the black, the "criminal" (and I use quotation marks here because sometimes criminal acts stem from sheer desperation after society has completely failed these people) in this story. While this book takes place in 2025 and I can see that some of his imaginings are completely outdated, others are unfortunately quite realistic. It just makes me more convinced that King truly understands and can write about human nature in many of its aspects, both good and bad.

Rage: This is the reason I bought this collection, and I'm glad I did. However, how do you rate a story like Rage, especially in the climate our country is in when it comes to guns? While I can completely see why King chose to pull it from all future publications, I think it's still a fine example of how King can take a protagonist (or antagonist?) and help us better understand how he reached that tipping point. He absolutely does not excuse Charlie for what he did, but what I found fascinating is what he ended up doing with his classmates and how it ended up affecting each of them afterward. I did not rate this one because I'm not sure how to rate it. On the one hand, the writing is very skillfully done; you simply can't look away. And I truly did not see where this was going until it got there. But with the recent school shootings (sadly, when is there not a recent school shooting these days?), some might argue that King is trying to blame what the shooter did on his parents or society or the bullies or whatever else someone might try to do. I really didn't get that from my reading of this story. Either way, I did think this story was worth reading and it gave me a lot to think about.

Overall, I would give the collection 4 stars as a whole, with Roadwork being the weakest of the bunch.

Average rating is a solid three stars. I truly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it if you are a fan of Stephen King.

Two of these books feature games of death, which happens to be my absolute favorite horror sub-genre. These alone were more than enough to make it worthwhile to get through the subpar stories. In general, this is a "popcorn" read, and you can take that however you like.

Notes on each story:

Rage: It also earns a solid three stars. I understand the reason why this book is out of print. Empathizing with a school shooter is not exactly a welcomed perspective in today's society. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this story quite a lot and found it to be a bit campy, similar to Heathers.

The Long Walk: This excellent game of death gets four stars. The main character was quite memorable (by SK standards), and the novel touched on the common yet excellent theme of games of death: even the winner doesn't truly win. I read this a few months ago and took a break from the book after that because it was such an enjoyable story, and I knew the third one wasn't regarded as very strong.

Roadwork: It only gets two stars since I didn't like it and found it a chore to read. I usually enjoy King's descent into madness stories, but this one was very bloated. I managed to get through it because I was looking forward to...

The Running Man: This game of death earns a perfect five stars. The world building is excellent, the suspense is palpable, and the genuine horror is spine-chilling. The social commentary is also stellar and has stood the test of time. The story is set in the 2020s but was written in the 80s. This was a great page-turner and is my top recommendation out of these stories.

The Running Man is an extremely exciting and engaging show. It has received a remarkable 4.5 stars overall.

This high rating is well-deserved as the show offers a unique blend of entertainment, adventure, and competition. The cast members bring their own personalities and charm to the table, making each episode a delight to watch.

The various challenges and games they participate in are not only physically demanding but also require quick thinking and strategic planning. The chemistry among the cast members is palpable, and their interactions add an extra layer of fun to the show.

Whether it's running through the city streets, solving puzzles, or engaging in intense battles, The Running Man always keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats. It's no wonder that it has such a large and dedicated fan base. With its high energy and non-stop action, The Running Man is truly a must-watch for anyone looking for a fun and entertaining show.

Rage - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I had desired to read this for numerous years. Especially after I discovered as a young teen that it had been found in the locker of one of the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, which led to the book being banned (if my memory serves me correctly). To be honest, it was less subversive than I had anticipated, so I was a bit disappointed. It mostly consisted of long, rambling speeches about all the wrongs in the poor protagonist's life. However, I found the reactions of his classmates quite interesting, and it did a good job of examining the psyche of a school shooter.

The Long Walk - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I ultimately got bored in the middle of this one. It was definitely too long and could have done much more with the concept and the created world. Instead, King simply let us peek inside the mind of a horny teenager whose only thoughts seemed to revolve around sex. The relationships between the boys, though, were great.

Roadwork - ⭐️⭐️

This one nearly defeated me. Literally nothing happens! It is dull until basically the last 10 or so pages.

The Running Man - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I've just reviewed it separately, so I won't go into details. But it was definitely the most action-packed of the collection. The world King created was extremely interesting, and I loved that it was set in 2025 as a reader in 2023. We are closer to the dystopia King crafted than I think he would have believed if he had been told back in the 70s.

——

An interesting collection that is clearly King's, but it slightly disappoints due to overly long and drawn-out stories that could be significantly shorter.

Rating is for “The Long Walk”

“The Long Walk” is a captivating and thought-provoking piece of work. It takes the reader on an intense journey that explores the human spirit and the lengths one will go to in the face of adversity. The story is filled with vivid descriptions and engaging characters that draw the reader in from the very beginning.

The pacing of the narrative is well-done, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat throughout. The author does an excellent job of building tension and creating a sense of urgency. As the characters embark on their long walk, the reader is able to experience their emotions and struggles along with them.

Overall, “The Long Walk” is a highly recommended read. It is a powerful and moving story that will stay with you long after you have finished reading. Whether you are a fan of adventure, drama, or simply a good story, this book has something to offer. I would rate it highly and encourage others to give it a chance.

Without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite books is The Bachman Books. It clearly demonstrates that horror is not merely about vampires, werewolves, and blood. Instead, it delves deep into the essence of human nature, the depths of depravity, and the impact of circumstance. My copy includes The Long Walk, Rage, Roadwork, and The Running Man. Additionally, Thinner and The Regulators were read separately. Among all of them, I would have to say that The Long Walk was my absolute favorite. Its intensity and the bitter comprehension it offers are truly captivating. I often use these stories as examples whenever people feel the need to criticize the genre. What they show is that the real, heart-pounding horror of the world does not reside in fantasy but in the harsh reality that surrounds us.

This is the very first "dirty book" that I have ever read in my entire life. You see, during my teens, I had only read works like Famous Five, Five Find Outers, and Secret Seven. So, when I read The Bachman Books (with all its rather explicit language and sexual content) at around the age of fifteen, it was truly a shocking experience. I was particularly influenced by The Long Walk and Road Work.

I haven't revisited this collection of short stories for quite some time. However, I vividly remember how Garraty's relationship with Priscilla didn't work out due to the smell of cow dung (or perhaps it was milk products?) whenever they engaged in intimate moments.

Road Work and Rage are perilous works of art. These stories possess the power to drive unhinged individuals to commit acts of violence or even self-destruction. King once likened his novels to hamburgers. Well, this book is more like cyanide. It has a certain toxicity that can have a profound and potentially harmful impact on the reader.

Reason for Reading: I'm engaged in the process of re-reading all of Stephen King's works in chronological order. I'm perusing these books individually in the sequence they were published among his other works. After spending a few years reading through the entire book, I've determined that "The Long Walk" is my favorite novel here, and I do recall enjoying it a great deal the first time around as well. My least favorite was "Roadwork," although I'll state that I didn't dislike any of them. Taken together on average, I rate the complete collection a 4 out of 5.

Rage - This is the initial book Stephen King published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. It is markedly different from the other books he had released at this time. I'm uncertain if it truly fits into any specific genre other than just fiction. It's an angry narrative of an enraged youth who, in his final year of high school, believes he is going insane and one day takes his algebra classroom hostage at gunpoint after killing two teachers in the process. The story evolves into a "Breakfast Club" type of situation as the hostages and the hostage-taker share stories and learn about each other. It's an interesting story, well-written and thought-provoking. Even though some kid blamed the influence of this book on his real-life school shooting and King later retired this book from ever being republished, I still highly recommend it. (4/5)

The Long Walk - I originally read "The Long Walk" when King released his omnibus of "The Bachman Books" in 1985. Among the four novels, "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man" were my favorites, and I was eagerly anticipating this re-read. Initially, the book struck a chord with me because even back in the eighties, I could envision a world where game shows had turned into life or death affairs. Of course, now, in the 21st century, with reality shows that embarrass, degrade, hurt, and sometimes seriously injure participants physically and/or emotionally, the life and death scenario is not so difficult to imagine in today's death culture.

In "The Long Walk," we are in a future America that has a dictator and a military presence. We only know that some event occurred in the past for things to have turned out this way. Boys aged 14 to 17 are permitted to enter the annual Long Walk, from which 100 contestants are selected. The event is a national spectacle, and parts of it are broadcast on TV, with millions of dollars being wagered on who will be the winner. The book focuses on the race from one participant's perspective, and we experience the physical, emotional, and mental hardships and breakdowns that these boys endure. The penalty for slipping below 4 miles per hour during the walk results in a warning every thirty seconds. After the 3rd warning, there is a 30-second countdown, and the loser is shot dead and carried away. The game concludes when one contestant remains alive. I truly appreciated the psychological insights into the Walkers as a whole group and as individuals, the dynamics as they broke down into small groups, pairs, and loners, and the examination of the varying effects that the psychological and physical torture had on different individuals. It's probably my favorite of all the Bachman books, but I'll have to re-read them all before making a definite decision. A re-read that met my expectations. (5/5)

Roadwork - This is my first re-read where I had absolutely no memory of the story whatsoever. And my copy only has a vague sentence about an angry man fighting back as a summary, so I wasn't any the wiser from that. As I read, it really didn't come back to me either, which is strange as I completely remember the other three in this book.

This is a challenging book for me to review as it improved as I read it. Honestly, I was rather bored for the first half and didn't really get hooked until close to the end when the excitement built. It's a story that attempts too hard to展示 the reader the mental breakdown of a man. One who loses it and goes out "guns blazing." When we meet Bart, he's already far down the road to no return, hearing a voice and conversing with it. The book takes a long time to gradually let the reader know who this voice is and what the whole story behind it is, and this is part of the book's slowness and what made it such a bland read for the most part. Now, even though I seem negative here, the book wasn't bad; in fact, it was good. This story is a thinker. Bart is "crazy" when we meet him, and in my mind, the deeper he descends into his insanity, the saner he becomes, until at the end of the book, when he can be regarded as a madman, he is at his ultimate sanest moment in the entire book. He has taken himself where he wanted to end up, even though he didn't know it as far back as a few years ago when "the incident" happened, and he's enjoyed these last weeks getting there. I was satisfied with the read at the end, even though I had a hard time really getting into it.

This is the first Bachman that I truly felt was King. The writing style, the stream of consciousness, the dialogue are all classic King, and thinking back, I can see astute fans of the time piecing together the clues and outing King as Bachman (or at least suspecting) with this book.

When I read a King, I always look out for connections to other books, and the only one I noticed here was that one of the laundry machines was called The Mangler. This is the name of a machine (perhaps even the title?) in a short story in "Night Shift." 3.5/5

The Running Man - This is the book that I was most eagerly anticipating re-reading in this collection. The first time I read it, the movie hadn't been made yet, and I found this an incredibly terrifying tale as it felt so real. More real than "The Long Walk" at that time, which is also a deadly game show sci-fi. This time, it didn't affect me as much because it wasn't very believable in our current time and age. King's vision of 2025 from his vantage point of 1982 simply isn't possible; the world has changed too much since then. Pollution is no longer our major concern, and all the smoking, etc. just wouldn't be acceptable anymore. However, beyond that, it is a good story. A government-run state happily eliminating its poor, sick, and unproductive, so-called useless people is a possible reality if the current death culture, eugenics-centered society that exists today persists. This is a grim book with no hope. It begins with us, and the main character, knowing he will die at the end. But it is a good chase story, and I think it is a well-written Bachman book. Unfortunately, the movie does spoil reading this for me now as I couldn't get Arnold Schwarzenegger out of my head as Ben, nor Richard Dawson as the TV Host. For those who don't know, though, the book and the movie may have the same basic plot (a game show to the death), but the similarity ends there. They completely rewrote the plot and characters for the movie version, so don't pass up the book because of your opinion of the movie.

Interestingly enough, I found a reference to the King Universe here when Ben ends up at an airport in Derry, Maine. I love looking for the connections between the books now that I'm reading these in chronological order, but I knew Derry from future books such as "It," so I had to Google and see if this was the first time Derry was ever mentioned by King, and technically, it is! It is debatable, though, because this was published as a Bachman book, and in the same year, 1982, under his own name, King published the collection "Different Seasons," which contains the novella "The Body," which doesn't take place in Derry but does mention it in passing as a nearby town. So we can see King establishing his universe already, and this is the year that astute readers should have made the connection between Bachman and King as he has now given it away. (4/5)

I read this a loooog time ago.

It seems like it was such a distant memory.

I can still recall some of the key points, but the details have become a bit模糊.

Maybe it was an interesting story, or perhaps it was an informative article.

Either way, it left an impression on me at that time.

As the days have passed, I've often thought about that piece of writing.

It makes me wonder what else I've read and forgotten over the years.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back and reread all those old books and articles.

Maybe I would discover something new or gain a different perspective.

But for now, this memory of reading that thing a long time ago will have to suffice.

I'll cherish it and use it as a reminder of the importance of continuous learning and exploration.

I think this was my second or third King book. It collects all but Thinner of the original five Bachman novellas.

"The Running Man" I already reviewed. It is better than (and WAY different from) the movie. The story has its own unique charm and tension that the movie fails to fully capture.

"The Long Walk" I also already reviewed. It's one of my favorite stories of all time. I love it because it explores the themes of survival, competition, and the human spirit in a truly engaging way.

"Roadwork" I don't remember all that well, but I know I liked it. Maybe it was the sense of mystery and the way the story unfolded that kept me interested.

"Rage" was the controversial one. It's about a student who took his high school class hostage, killing the teacher in the process. The rest of the story is just him talking to the class and figuring out how it came to this point. It's an amazing story about what it's like to be a teenager from someone who wasn't too far from that age himself. It's always being blamed for high school hostage situations, but I think that's because people don't understand it. It's not judgmental really on either side. It's saying that being a teenager is fucking painful. And all it takes is an ear to stop things like this from happening. We should try to understand the struggles and emotions of teenagers instead of just blaming them for their actions.

Reading this collection out of order and likely won't read them back to back, so I'll go ahead and make my review notes as I progress:

The Longest Walk - 4 stars - I absolutely love the concept! It's a really interesting book, and I'm extremely impressed considering it was the first book King ever penned. At certain points, it's evident that it was written by an 18 - 19 year old, especially as everything is seen from the perspective of teenage boys in sometimes rather painful ways. I truly appreciated the glimmers of brilliance that shone through. However, I did think it was awfully long in comparison to the action of the plot. I believe it would have been more effective as a novella, as there seemed to be a significant amount of filler.

I also desired more information about the dystopian world in which it takes place. Everything appears mostly normal except for the existence of the Walk, the mentions of the Guards, and the Major. The states, roads, towns, and the general way of life seem to be largely intact. Additionally, I wanted more details on what happened to Garrity's father.

One aspect that I didn't like at all was the fact that McVries was an attempted rapist yet was portrayed as a good guy and Garrity's best buddy. That jerk deserved that scar, and as soon as I discovered why he had it, he was persona non grata to me. The final 2 was really predictable, as I think King was a bit too obvious in his hints towards Stebbins. I didn't really understand how the kid was being used as the "rabbit" unless the Major knew his Prize would motivate him enough to win while the other kids didn't know what they wanted. It wasn't made clear that Stebbins had told the Major what his Prize would be (unless I missed it, which is a possibility). Nevertheless, I did like the ending, as bleak as it was. I just wish there had been a bit more clarity: did Garrity snap out of it and keep his promise to Scramm, or did he completely lose his mind and never claim his Prize or die before he could?

Overall, it was a really impressive first novel, and King's writing always manages to capture my attention. It just didn't quite meet my expectations, since quite a few people believe this is his best novel.

I picked up this book used on Amazon after reading King's recent long essay, On Guns.

It was in that essay where I learned he had taken the first novel in this collection, Rage, out of circulation due to its popularity with school shooters.

The collection actually includes four early King novels under his Richard Bachman pseudonym: Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man.

And they are all worth reading.

First, they are all really well written. Even the most adolescent and anti-social of the group, Rage, has its merits.

The Long Walk and The Running Man are two of the most disturbing science fiction dystopian novels I've read. Somehow each feels disconcertingly timely, as if they were written for the current era.

Roadwork is both achingly sad and very angry, a powerful combination.

Oh, just read them. They're good books, rippling with talent.

There is sexism, quite a bit of racism, and some homophobia in these books. However, when you consider how long ago all four books were published, and the fact that King both voices and strongly questions these attitudes in each book, it makes them a good deal less offensive.

They are still excellent, original, readable and memorable books that offer a unique perspective on different aspects of society and human nature.