The Bachman Books : Four Early Novels by Stephen King (omnibus of Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork...

The Bachman Books : Four Early Novels by Stephen King (omnibus of Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The ... | Richard Bachman, Stephen King | The most frightning stories King has written

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The Bachman Books ...

	The Bachman Books : Four Early Novels by Stephen King (omnibus of Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The ... Richard Bachman, Stephen King New American Library, 1985 - 692 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Excellent Anthology

Wow. I am amazed by these stories that Stephen King wrote so early in his carreer. They are all impressive and well written. They all have lasting impact. The first two are excellent psychological thrillers, complete with plenty of interesting philosophy. The third is a slow moving, character analysis of a schizophrenic. The final story is a fast moving action story. All of the stories are excellent.

Rage(5/5)- This is the reason that you won't be finding this anthology in stores. This story is about a school shooting incident. In it, a boy named Charlie Decker takes over his class after shooting his math teacher. I know it sounds ludacrously violent, but it isn't. There aren't many deaths, but alot of excitement and plenty of philosophy. It is told from the first-person (unusual for King) point of view of a killer. You get to watch his sanity slowly slip away. Very intriguing.

The Long Walk(5/5)- A tie with Rage for my favorite Bachman Book. This one involves a grim future in the style of my favorite book, 1984. In this grim, 1984-esque, future, there is a marathon held every year with 100 boys starting off on the U.S.-Canada border and they simply walk. If they go below 4mph for 30 seconds they recieve a warning. If they walk for one hour without a fresh warning they lose an old warning. If they acumulate three warnings, then stop again, they recieve a ticket a.k.a. a bullet in the head. This is the story of one walker - Ray Garraty - who enters the contest. He and others, including Pete McVries, Hank Olson, Art Baker, Barkovitch, and Stebbins. A bit predictable, but haunting and disturbing.

Roadwork(4/5)- This one is interesting. It isn't the best in the collection, but it is still an excellent story. It is a character analysis of a schizophrenic man pushed over the verge. The stoy involves a man named Bart whose house and business are threatened by a new construction project. He speaks to his dead son Charlie in his head. It should be known that in these conversations, Bart is George and Charlie is Fred (they called each other by their middle names).

The Running Man(4/5)- A fast paced story about a game show in the future where a man tries to avoid assassins. It is similar to The Long Walk just as Roadwork is similar to Rage. I like it, I just wish it had more of the philosophy that the others had. This one would be the best for young or immature readers while Roadwork would be really good for serious readers.

All in all it is an excellent anthology filled with
(disturbing moments)
Great storytelling. I really liked King's characterization and philosophy. The stories are fairly short and can each be read in a single sitting (except maybe Roadwork). Read 'em. Ponder 'em. Love 'em.

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The most frightning stories King has written

These four early stories all share the same theme of a terrifing not to distant future that strikes as close to reality as a book can. The first story, Rage is a dark psychologial portrit of teenage boy who loses grip of his sanity yet at same time feels alive for the first time in his life. The most frightning thing about the story is that it has happened in real life, more than once. The second story, The Long Walk really got to me. Its a chilling tale of a disasociated American watching and waiting for a group of runners to get their "ticket" one by one. Helped inspire the contraversial Japanese satire film Battle Royale (amazing film, see it!!) The third book Road Work is the story of a man whos life and mental state detiriorate around him along with his home, job, and marrige. Until he reaches the point of no return and lashes out at society. The final story, The Running Man is the tale of a decayed and apathetic America, where the poor are expendable, and people get their thrill by watching desparate people run for their lives on the Running Man. Some of these stories are cautionary tales. Some are stories that mirror reality in a frightiningly real manner.While others are a pesimistic Freudian analisyis of the human race. All in all this is a must read book. So buy it already!!

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The Long Read

"The Long Walk" is my favorite novella in this series. Never in so few pages can any author amaze me like King can. The way he writes is so matter-of-fact in this story.

I bought the book when I was in Jr. High, but things were much different then. People kept their problems to themselves and suffered in adolescent silence. Because of recent events concerning the youth of today, the book containing "Rage" has since been banned, I heard. Maybe it's for the best. If you're a preteen and you're reading this, it probably should be best read by mature audiences only.

Treasure this book if you don't like to read his longer volumes. His snippets suffice for your horror fix.

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Classic King

Long ago, before Stephen King was hit by the money bus - and later a real van - he could actually write. This collection of novellas helps celebrate that time; a time before slavish devotion to formula had him cranking out the same story over and over. A time before King's new-found relgious zealotry had him extolling the virtues of steadfast belief in a higher power at the core of his every over-long, soapy new novel. This four-story collection is a distillation of the writer King used to be.

I have retained my copy of this set since I was a kid. Luckily it is a hardback, so it has withstood the test of time relatively well. Every now and then I pull it out to re-read one of the stories and I am reminded of just how good this guy was. There is real talent between these covers.

Unfortunately the collection starts off with what I feel to be the weakest story of the bunch. Perhaps I'm just not a fan of self-indulgent adolescent revenge fantasies. "Rage" is just that. It is markedly similar to "Apt Pupil" and a short story, found in one of the ten thousand compilations King has cranked out, about a college kid going amok with a sniper rifle. A lot of the other reviewers have decried the so-called censorship that has removed this story from publication. Frankly I applaud King for realizing how harmful the story is. It is a pointless revenge fantasy in which a student kills a teacher and threatens his fellow schoolchildren with a gun. Romanticizing this behavior is only harmful, as is evidenced by those who post how "prophetic" this is. As if the kids who shot up Columbine or the other copycat incidents were wounded, tortured souls who wanted to discuss philosophy. They were petty thugs. This story asks us to empathize with such petty thugs. While there is a good bit of King's patented adolescent angst writing (he must have had a crappy childhood), the story itself is just creepy.

In my mind, this first story seriously cheapens the collection. I read it once, when I first got the book, and haven't read it since. Perhaps the publisher could re-release the collection without "Rage". Unfortunately to fill it out they might include "Thinner", which is awful for different reasons.

The other three novellas in this collection are nothing short of sublime. "The Long Walk" is an amazing tale about a futuristic game in which 100 volunteers walk until only one man is left. Anyone who flags beneath the required speed is shot. Anyone who tries to desert is shot. They never stop, walking and walking until all but one can walk no more. Overall this sounds like a boring concept, but King works his psychological wonders with the characters and has you turning page after page, empathizing with them and actually caring about them.

"Roadwork" is an odd story. It, too, is a revenge tale but is much less reprehensible in that the person attempting to get revenge does so without taking hostages, without shooting innocent people, and without putting himself up on a soapbox. The hero sees his world falling apart and lacks the desire to reconstruct it. So he just goes along for the ride. In the introduction King says that he wrote this story to deal with his own grief when a loved one died. The truth of that statement shines through. This is a very powerful piece.

The final story, "The Running Man", simply shows the raw talent King embodied. Apparently the entire story was written in a span of 72 hours. Another futuristic game show tale, this one is about a society which is heavily splintered into have and have-not; the have-nots appearing on game shows to try to earn money to survive. The lead character, trying to earn money to take his daughter to the hospital, applies for a game show spot and is given a slot on the titular show, which sets a man loose to run while professional hunters - and all of society - track him down. The rules state that if he eludes capture for 30 days he wins, but there are reasons to doubt that. An effective update of "The Most Dangerous Game", this story grabs you and holds you. If all you know of "The Running Man" is the godawful Schwarzenegger film, you definitely need to read this one (the book version will definitely never be filmed, at least not with that ending).

So three novels of four are must-reads. I highly recommend picking this one up, even if you have to buy it used.

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I'm looking for the book

I have heard every thing about this book. I have been looking for it for the longest time. If any body knows how or when to get it please e-mail me.
krisstarlee28@earthlink.net
Thank you,