The Running Man (1982)

This is the thirteenth of a personal series of caches based upon my favourite author: Stephen King. The caches are being placed in order of his publications. You do not need to have read any of the books to find the caches, or appreciate them. There is a bookmark list of all the existing SK caches so far: SK Bookmark List

The Running Man is the thirteenth published book by Stephen King, and was first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 as a paperback original. In 1985 it was collected in the omnibus The Bachman Books (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man). It is the last of four books written by Stephen King that were published between 1977 and 1982 under his pseudonym. King created Bachman to be his long term alias but his real name was leaked to the media after this book. He based his novel The Dark Half, 1989, on the outing of Bachman. According to King in 2002, he wrote the novel in a single week, and by a man who was ‘angry, energetic, and infatuated with the art and craft of writing’.

The novel is set in a dystopian United States during the year 2025, the economy is in ruins and world violence is rising. The story follows Ben Richards as he participates in the game show The Running Man in which contestants are chased by hunters employed 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 until the last chapter ‘000’.

The Running Man was very loosely adapted into a film with the same name, released in 1987, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards. The film was later made into a video game released on several home computer platforms. In 2016 an American reality series, The Runner, implemented the core gameshow of the novel, although the chasers are only to capture the runner not kill!

For this wherigo I would recommend either sturdy walking boots or wellies. There are chances to be caught where you’d have to start again if you want to claim the main cache, there is a ‘caught’ cache as a consolidation prize as well. If there are no restarts than the walk is just over a mile and takes less than an hour (it took my run through 26 minutes). Of course if you get caught and start again it will be longer. You can download the cartridge here: SK13: The Games