A Dystopian Novel That's Even Better Than The Hunger Games

By Sarah Jane Abbott    |   Friday, April 03, 2015 - Off the Shelf Right from its release in 2008, The Hunger Games was a hit. It was critically acclaimed and a bestseller and has spawned a billion-dollar film franchise. Despite all of this, in Stephen King’s review of the novel for Entertainment Weekly, he gave the smash-hit book a “B” grade. “B” as in, good, but could be better. So how would Stephen King take a similar concept and do it his way? The answer is the 1979 novel The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, also known as Stephen King. In a near-future, military-controlled dystopian United States, there is an annual, televised competition called The Long Walk. Teenage boys across the country apply to be contestants and those that pass the application process are entered into a televised drawing for The Walk where one hundred “lucky” boys are chosen to participate. At precisely 9 AM on May 1, these boys begin walking down a highway in Maine. The rules are as follows: the boys must continuously walk forward on the road at four miles per hour or above and must not physically interfere with one another. If a walker’... READ FULL POST