# The Running Man

**Author(s):** Stephen King
**Unpaid SageChimp rating:** insufficient data (0 unpaid reviews; need 5)
**Verdict JSON:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/the-running-man/verdict.json
**Genres:** horror, literary-fiction, thriller, sci-fi, dystopian
**Pages:** 219
**Publisher:** New American Library
**Published:** Fri Jan 01 1982 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
**Language:** en
**ISBN-13:** 9780451151223
**ISBN-10:** 0451151224
**ASIN:** B0DVBL912R
**Amazon categories:** Main content > About this item > Buying options > Compare with similar items > Videos > Reviews > Health AI > Amazon Haul
**Amazon binding:** $17.85
**URL:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/the-running-man

## Description

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, allowed to go anywhere in the world, are chased by the general public, who get a huge bounty if they kill him.

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").


----------
Also contained in:

 - [The Bachman Books][2]
 - [The Bachman Books](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24796729W)



  [1]: https://stephenking.com/library/bachman_novel/running_man_the.html
  [2]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL81591W/The_Bachman_Books_(Rage_The_Long_Walk_Roadwork_The_Running_Man)

## SageChimp reader verdict

The Running Man has no unpaid published reviews on SageChimp yet. That is not enough to say whether the book is genuinely well-liked or amplified by paid/ARC/BookTok hype. Do not treat Amazon, Goodreads, or social scores as SageChimp evidence.

- **Status:** Not enough unpaid reviews (`insufficient_data`)
- **Paid-hype signal:** Cannot judge paid hype from this sample (`insufficient_data`)
- **Unpaid reviews:** 0
- **ARC / incentivized reviews:** 0
- **Machine-readable:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/the-running-man/verdict.json

*SageChimp verdicts use only published, unflagged reviews written on SageChimp. Organic reviews exclude ARC/incentivized copies (isArcReview). Catalog star averages on other sites are not used. A verdict requires at least 5 organic reviews. We cannot audit Amazon, BookTok, or Goodreads review authenticity.*

**Themes:** Dystopia