If they get three warnings they are murdered before the world by a troop of US soldiers. The rules are they have to walk above 4 miles per hour. A 100 boys are chosen to walk across the county’s highways until only one remain. Set in an alternative future where The Second World War lasted beyond 1945 The Long Walk is a competitive event that’s televised across America. Modern readers may find the novel’s premise similar to that of The Hunger Games, but in reading it The Long Walk sits closer to such novels as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Philip K Dick’s The Man In The High Castle. As previously mentioned, this was not a newly written book, with some sources saying it was King’s first-ever attempt at a written novel. King’s seventh book, The Long Walk, was released under the name Richard Bachman in 1979.

So perhaps that was what lead to the creation of Bachman.Īnyway, enough of the history lesson. Even with the success of those three books King was not the household name, he would go on to become in the 80s, plus his own publisher, Doubleday, was known to not respect the work he was doing in the same way they did more literary fiction. All were immensely successful, but it’s interesting to know that King doubted his talents as a writer so early on. I find this interesting as when the first Bachman book came out, he had only published three books under the King’s name, Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and The Shining. King states that his reason for Richard Bachman was to discover if his own success was down to luck or talent. What’s strange about King’s desire to release more books was that he didn’t utilize it in the beginning to publish new work, instead, he did so to publish older novels he had written that publishers weren’t as interested in. King and his publisher came to a compromise, allowing him to publish extra books under a pseudonym and thus Richard Bachman was born.

Bachman books the long walk