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The Running Man is one of those books, where you think that the film is
based on the book because the plot is so superficious and fictious.
You are false the book is different, but what happened to the plot? Now
you can understand the peoples feelings and after reading this book,
you´ll see something different in your TV - SET. The power to change
your will, the power to manipulate your mind and certainly you´ll get a
distance between you and your TV - SET.

Content:
Ben Richard is just married and has a baby. He is unemployed and
always on the run to get a job. His baby is ill and the pain is, that he
simply has´nt enough money to buy the medicaments. The illness get´s
worse and worse and he panicks. But then he hears, that he can make
good money, if he is willing to work in a show.
You just have to know, that we are in Co - Op city in 2021. The
Television is the most important free time activity and for this reason a
giant concern has constructed a wonderworld on TV. It is showtime,
people are invited to play in these shows, but there is one serious
problem, they have to survive. For example there is one show where
only people with one or two heart attacks before can enter. The have to
take place on a bicycle and then they get electric shocks. That means
that they should drive their bike faster. The show ends when the
candidate gets an heart attack or dies. But above all these shows there
is one show, everybody wants to see. THE RUNNING MAN.
Back to Ben Richards. Before somebody can play a part in a show he
must be tested physically and mentally, these questonnaire lasts two

days, Ben Richards passes all the tests. And then he gets to know the
truth. He will play a part in the most famous show, The Running Man.
Nobody before him has survived, but Ben knows that he has to survive
for his baby and his wife. He has two days in which he can prepare
himself for the show. He meets the showmaster Evan Mc Cone who is a
bad character full of hatred against him.
It is showtime, five minutes before he can start, the audience is
introducted. Ben knows why all these people hate him, they have
changed his life. Now he is a thieve who has raped small kids, the
audience hates him. He flees, he has a start of one day to the hunters.
He searches for a new identity, a new passport and a good place to
hide. Every day he has to send a cassette with a report to the
showmaster, it only helps the hunters, now they can find out easier,
where he hides.
In the following days he strolls through America, from N.Y. to L.A. . He
gets to know some people who trust and help him, but the majority has
seen the faked films of Ben Richards in the show and therefore they
distrust him and cheat him, so that he is always on the run. He heads
north towards Maine. The hunters are near. Then the situation collapses.
They nearly catches him but then he takes a hostage. A young woman,
he takes her and a car to the airport. The young woman, who first
doesn´t like him at all, has to learn that the reality is different to the show
- reality. Soon she helps him and they get a plane. The hunters try to
delay him but finally he gets into the plane. Before he starts he wants the
showmaster of Running Man in the plane. Mc Cone enters and they take
off. Ben kills the showmaster in a fight and has to learn that the pilotes
are also hunters. The young woman helps him where she can. Then
finally he wants her to jump off the plane, Of course with a parachute,
then he heads towards the giant Tee Vee building, where all those
shows are made. He crashes into the building. His wive gets enough
money to provide herself and the baby, but Ben Richards is dead.
THE END.

One might say that this ia again a book from Stephen King without
sense, this time I think that the content has in a particular way sense.
The television is able to change us, as we see in the book it is able to
force a mass to work against a single man. And this development is
dangerous.
Although the end of the book is nearly banal I have to admit that this was
the only consequence. From the beginning of the book on, I knew that
he would die
I liked it very much, the film is bad but the book - I don´t know but you
better read the book instead of watching the film on TELEVISION!!!!!!

Thomas Bachleitner - H.

03.01.1997 - 2nd Book Report