(1979) The Long Walk

The Long Walk is a dystopian novel by Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1979 as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books, and has seen several reprints since, as both paperback and hardback. Set in a dystopian present following an alternate history in which Germany appears to have won WW2, the plot revolves around the contestants of a grueling walking contest, held annually by a totalitarian version of the United States of America. In 2000, the American Library Association listed The Long Walk as one of the 100 best books for teenage readers published between 1966 and 2000. According to Stephen King, it is the first novel he wrote, begun eight years before his novel Carrie was published in 1974, when he was a freshman at the University of Maine in 1966–1967.

Stephen King devotee James Smythe retakes The Long Walk in his survey of the horror master, and finds King's earliest book, written when he was just 18, as powerful today as it was in 1979

100 young boys (under 18) walk for as long as they can. The Walk starts in Maine, and usually ends somewhere around Maryland. The twist is that if they walk under 4 MPH and are warned 3 times, or try to go into the crowd, they are shot on sight by patrolling soldiers. The last man alive wins the grand prize, which is whatever he wants for the rest of his life.

Raymond Davis Garraty arrives in a guarded parking lot with his mother in a blue Ford that looks like "a small tired dog after a hard run." The guard retrieves Garraty's information and permits them to enter.

The Long Walk is set in a dystopian North America and follows a torturous annual walking contest for teenage boys. Described as a national sport, The Long Walk features one hundred participants who must walk non-stop while maintaining a speed of 4 miles/hour.

The Long Walk is a novel by Stephen King about a dystopian America that has an event called the long walk where a group of one hundred teenage boys walk until only one of them is left standing alive.

by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman, reviewed & recommended.

Before The Hunger Games, there was The Long Walk, a novel by Stephen King about a group of boys who are chosen to perish every year, in order to entertain the