The Long Walk
1979
- horror
- suspense
- fiction
- dystopia
- walking contests
- totalitarianism
- half-tracks
- horror tales
- american literature
- fiction, general
The story
The Long Walk is a dystopian horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1979, under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books, and has seen several reprints since, as both paperback and hardback. Set in a future dystopian America, ruled by a totalitarian and militaristic dictator, the plot revolves around the contestants of a grueling, annual walking contest. In 2000, the American Library Association listed The Long Walk as one of the 100 best books for teenage readers published between 1966 and 2000. --- Also contained in: - [The Bachman Books](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL81591W/The_Bachman_Books_\(Rage_The_Long_Walk_Roadwork_The_Running_Man\)) - [The Bachman Books](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24796729W)
What it’s like
Bleak and relentless, a road-bound nightmare that moves like a metronome: the prose is plain, clipped and conversational, with the grey asphalt of a dim near-future America unspooling under a sun that never stops mattering. Scenes are short and close-up, dominated by sweat, blisters, hunger, the rasp of breath and the drone of a half-track keeping pace at the roadside, so the sensory world is tight and physical rather than lush. The mood is grim suspense with a cold, dystopian edge, the kind of unease that sits in the chest and tightens with every mile, lifted now and then by dark wit and flashes of camaraderie between the boys. Violence is present and occasionally brutal, delivered matter-of-factly and often at a distance, with real fear and cruelty running under the surface; it is not gentle and it is not gory for its own sake. Best for readers who like propulsive, claustrophobic horror and a bleak premise carried by character, late at night or on a long journey where a page-turner will hold attention, though it is unsuited to anyone seeking comfort or lightness.
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