I finished reading "The Long Walk" by Richard Bachman aka Stephen King this morning. I flew through it in less than 24 hours, nothing do to at work helped a lot! It's the story of 100 teenage boys that meet for an annual competition called The Long Walk. Winning the competition is easy: outlast everyone else. Stumble, fall, sit, leave the road or average a pace under 4 miles an hour and you'll get a warning. Get three warnings and you get your "ticket" out of the competition. A ticket means immediate death. Got a cramp? Too bad a warning. Got to take a shit? Too bad a warning. Well you get the drift... Outlast everyone and you are rewarded by the government with everything you could ever want.
The book was originally published in 1979 and it seems to be typical King writing, meaning much better than the drivel he has published today. With the book being so old some of the references are outdated but it doesn't really matter as the time the competition takes place seems to be in some sort of alternate reality from our own. The story doesn't really go in to detail about the origins of the walk but dialogue suggests that it's a huge event each year with billions being wagered on who will survive. There are also other vague references of America being a totalitarian or communist society (there are no millionaires) and World War II lasting as long as the early fifty's.
Has anyone read the book? I'd really like to see what others thought about the book, the premise and especially the ending. It was recommended to me by my cousin but I won't get a chance to chat with her until Monday.
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