Run to survive When I found out that the movie with the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger "The Running Man" was shot based on the work of Stephen King, I did not believe it at first. Where is King and where is this movie. In the sense that there are completely different genres here. The film is a typical action-fiction movie. King doesn't work in this genre. Then I found out that it turns out that the original book really came from the pen of the master of horror, but he wrote it under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Well, when I started reading this work, everything fell into place. King does not write here in his usual manner. If you don't know that this is his work, then you won't tell. A completely different style and presentation of the material. I really liked her. The work itself is very different from what everyone saw on the screen. And this is a huge plus. The book and the events taking place in it are much deeper and brighter than what the authors of the film demonstrate. King shows us a dystopian world, which I even slightly associate with Orwell's world in 1984. This is a social drama-fiction, where the main character is perfectly shown in his experiences about his sick daughter, when a man is ready to do anything just to be able to help the girl. The reader is presented with a terrible world of social inequality, where some feast and enjoy performances, while others are forced to risk their lives to somehow stay afloat. A kind of "death on the air", where the audience is hungry for the blood of the participants, who are hunted by murderers in order to kill another poor guy for fun. Participate, earn money if you win. Everything is voluntary, but there are no winners. And the main thing for everyone is the spectacle. King perfectly shows the utopian society of the future America, when the main character Ben Richards encounters different people and situations as he survives. Capitalism has reached an extreme stage, the world is perverted, money rules everything, and man is just cannon fodder, which they are willing to sacrifice for the sake of others in order to entertain them. Richards, by the way, is calm. He is absolutely adequate, understands that either he will win, which is unlikely, and save his daughter, or he will simply die here. But he can't back down. There is no other way out for him. A man cares little about his own safety. King shows the results of what is emerging today. Ratings are important. Everywhere. You need to be in the trends, in the tops, or you're just trash. Human lives don't mean anything along the way. The main thing is the popularity that the rich are ready to achieve with the help of their show. Our world today is starting to move towards this. It's just that King foresaw this 40 years ago. The author, however, shows that there will always be those in society who will challenge the system. Just like Richards does. The work is extremely easy to read. Still, King, with his way of immersing himself in the thoughts of the characters, often goes hard for me. But here the master showed himself from a different side, writing a work in a completely different key. And he did it extremely well. His world looks real, it is perfectly worked out, the characters are not empty unknown people that just come across in the narrative. Each of them is a person. This makes "The Running Man" a great piece. King showed us a great vision of what could well be realized in the future, and some things can be found right now. And those who believe that this world is unreal may well turn to history, where we have repeatedly seen similar things over the millennia, whether it be gladiatorial fights, the Holocaust, the humiliation of minorities and so on. A person has always been and remains a dangerous predator, which will quite bite an opponent to death if his life or the lives of his loved ones are in danger. Then he will not remember that there are social norms and established rules and laws. When you're on the edge, you can do things you don't even expect yourself to do. And those around will watch it with interest and even applause. 10 out of 10