The Running Man : A Novel

The Running Man is a dystopian thriller novel by American writer Stephen King, first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the omnibus The Bachman Books. The novel is set in a dystopian United States during the year 2025, in which the nation’s economy is in ruins and world violence is rising. The story follows protagonist Ben Richards as he participates in the reality show The Running Man, in which contestants win money by evading a team of hitmen sent to kill them. The book has a total of 101 chapters, laid out in a countdown format. The first is titled Minus 100 and Counting … with the numbers decreasing, ending with the last chapter called Minus 000 and Counting (or, in some versions, simply 000).