I am ONCE AGAIN asking Stephen King to be LESS HORNY.

That man will find a way to bring sex into ANYTHING.

This is a story about 100 boys signing up to go on The Long Walk, a gruesome competition which can have only one survivor.

You would think that there is no time for sex when the stakes are that high but no, Stephen always finds a way.

I am not surprised that people found out that he was Richard Bachman. They looked at all those descriptions of boobs and and unnecessary sex scenes that don't fit in with anything else going on and were like "haha, classic Stephen!!!".

This book had an introduction about the "Importance of being Bachman", where Stephen explained that he used Bachman to write books that he couldn't write as King.
Excuse me??? This is like 100% a classic King, what are you talking about?

It's alright, Stephen, just go write erotica, it's fine, you don't have to construct this entire horror plot just to write your sex scenes, just write those, write a pornscript or something, just do it.

The worst thing is that the plot and general idea of this was interesting as fuck.

100 boys, having to keep up a steady pace and walk and walk or else they get shot? All the psychological torture and those boys just slowly crumbling under the pressure of the walk? The gruesomeness of it? This whole thing being a piece of entertainment for the rest of the population? The boys actually WILLINGLY signing up to this whole thing, and why? The temporary friendships and the animosity they have going on with each other because on the one hand they're all in this together but on the other the faster everyone else dies the better for the individual? So fucking interesting!!

But Stephen has to go and ruin it with all the unnecessary sex scenes.

What's his problem? Every time I read a King book summary it's like the most interesting thing ever and then I go and actually read the book and it's like: BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOOOOOOOBS child orgy BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS.

????

TL;DR: I hate it here.

To think something so dark and depressing could come out of a premise so simple.

I'll keep this brief, Richard Bachman (a pseudonym of Stephen King) has made something short and great here. The premise of the book is annually, 100 teenagers entered a competition called "The Long Walk" where they have to walk literally non-stop until only one person remaining. The winner gets to have anything they want. It's a very simple premise and it somehow made Hunger Games looks like Disneyland. The slow descent into madness and insanity are clearly shown step by step, the changes in the characters from when they began were shown gradually.

This is truly a dark tale, sometimes even depressing. The author's prose was great and descriptive. The fatigue, the pain, and the gradual changes in the characters can be felt from the writing. Not gonna lie, at one point, I felt my feet get tired from reading. It's a very compelling story, I finished reading this in one day.

The minor cons I had on the book was even though this is a really short book, there are still some parts that I felt goes on a bit longer than necessary during the first half of the book. Also, the ending was too abrupt and a bit too ambiguous. There are a lot of great fan theories on the ending though, so if you feel disappointed by it, I think one of this theory can put more closure on the reader.

Overall, I highly recommend this for anyone who's looking for a short, dark, engrossing, and a bit philosophical book.

You can find this and the rest of my Adult Epic/High Fantasy & Sci-Fi reviews at BookNest

Me encanta la habilidad de Stephen King para crear historias en extremo perturbadoras a partir de personas comunes y corrientes que se exponen (o son expuestas) a situaciones límite… me gusta la forma en que desgrana página a página el funcionamiento de la psique de sus personajes y cómo éstos van reaccionando de diferentes formas a medida de que la carga emocional aumenta.

En esta novela lo anterior no es menor, ya que todo el libro está centrado en la Larga Marcha propiamente tal. Al principio me decepcionó un poco que no se hiciera ninguna referencia a los orígenes de esta “competencia” o cómo se inserta es una estructura social determinada (¿quién realmente es el Comandante?)… pero increíblemente al avanzar en la lectura, esta falta de contextualización le da a la novela un cariz muy atractivo. Además, tampoco aburre, por el contrario, estás pendiente del avance de los marchadores, cuantos kilómetros llevan, cuantas horas llevan… cuántos quedan… Un final desgarrador pero a la vez inevitable.

In 1965, Stephen King turned 18. The same year the U.S. entered the Vietnam War.

It was a time when, in the words of P. F. Sloan as sung by Barry McGuire, "You're old enough to kill but not for votin'", as the 26th Amendment wouldn't be ratified until 1971, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

Like so many young men, King reported to his local draft board, his draft number 204. Upon failing the vision test, he was determined to be unfit for military service.

That same year, he published his first short story, I Was a Teenage Grave Robber, the initial entry into what would become a truly singular writing career.

But the shadow of Vietnam still loomed over his work. How could a horror author not be haunted by so many dead young men of his generation?

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in The Long Walk. A book about the sacrifice of boys, distinguished only by their assigned numbers to the powers that be, dying for an uncertain gain.

Unpublished until 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, it was actually the first novel King ever wrote, penned in his freshman year of college between 1966-67.

It is a dystopian novel of a near-future totalitarian America of considerable lack. Among the few opportunities afforded to its citizens is an annual walking contest for a chance at money and prizes. Each year, 100 teenaged boys enter and must walk at a nonstop pace above 4mph. They are only allowed three warnings if they stop or slow. If the pace isn't picked up, they're shot dead.

And the walk goes on until only one boy is left alive.

It is a major entertainment event for the country, watched on the news as a sort of proto-reality tv. People line up along U.S. Route 1 and wait for the walkers, cheering them like rock stars. Anyone there to protest the walk is subject to force.

Being boys, the characters first lavish in this attention. But the walk goes on. They get thirsty. They get hungry. And the crowds still watch them, betting on them like racehorses and commodifying their bodies until even their excretions are treated as collectibles.

But, also being boys, they find camaraderie in each other, strength in numbers despite the futility of it. They befriend one another and develop rivalries, even though none of it can last, good or bad. There can only be one winner. And they share prurient ideas about girls, short-shorts, breasts, and sex.

Because they're teenaged boys. They're children. They should be allowed to explore these prurient ideas in safety. In places that'll allow them to become men who, hopefully, outgrow such juvenile fixations.

And the tragedy of The Long Walk - and of any situation that cuts a young life short - is that they never will. They'll stay boys forever, celebrated for what they died as, not for who they could have been.