The Running Man is a dystopian thriller novel by American author Stephen King, originally published in 1982 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story is set in a grim near-future United States where the economy has collapsed and a totalitarian government controls the media. The protagonist, Ben Richards, is a desperate man who volunteers for a deadly game show called The Running Man, where contestants must survive for 30 days while being hunted by professional killers and ordinary citizens, all for a chance to win a fortune to save his sick daughter.
The novel explores themes of media exploitation, class struggle, and the dehumanizing effects of entertainment. It was written during a period when King was experimenting with darker, more cynical material under the Bachman alias. The book was originally released as a paperback original and later collected in the omnibus The Bachman Books in 1985. It has been praised for its tense, fast-paced narrative and its prescient critique of reality television and authoritarianism, influencing later works in the dystopian genre.
