The Long Walk

The premise is simple: 100 teenagers will walk, non-stop, until they drop one by one and are terminated, and the last one standing will be granted whatever his heart fancies. Around it King spools a gothic yarn of classic treatment. The kids that take the Walk go in expecting to fight only physical exhaustion. Slowly, they find out their enemy is a different one: MADNESS.

Anybody wishing to take a walk on the dark side, come along. They are about to start...


a compelling, thought-provoking book.   June 30, 1999
26 out of 27 found this review helpful

Easily the most compelling and thought-provoking novel written by the late Richard Bachman, " The Long Walk " rarely fails to deliver the goods. More a morality tale than a run of the mill horror story, the plot centers around a grotesque contest of will where the winner is rewarded with all that his heart desires, and the losers pay with their lives. The young man at the center of this madness is a frightened 16 year old named Raymond Garraty, who, along with the circle of other young men he befriends during the course of their journey, quickly run the gamut from feeling excitement at the beginning of the walk, to alternately feeling scared, repulsed, and worst of all, tired. Tired is what the reader will feel at the end of this book, having felt like they made the walk themselves. A truly frightening look at what could be in the years to come.


King at his best   July 15, 2006
M. A. Marriott (Hull, U.K.)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful

What a story!!For such a simple plot,King builds up characters you can really identify with and feel for.The reader can feel the fear and pain along with his or her favourite character.With the advent of reality T.V.,one feels this tale is not set in too distant a future,and that scares me as much as the guards in the book,and the punishments for walking slower than 3 miles per hour.The cameraderie built up between the walkers is admirable,and displays King,s faith in the human creature.There are similarities between this and Mr.King,s "Running Man" but I do not see this as a fault,just a need to re-tell a fantastic story.This does not have the speedy action of "Running Man" or the out and out horror of "Carrie",but I found it really creepy in a disturbing my sense of right and wrong way.One feels for the "heroes"of the walk,but surely greed was their motivation to start the walk,so one cannot help but think "well you asked for it".A great read


Horror... of a different nature.   June 16, 2004
Phil (England)
28 out of 30 found this review helpful

Stephen King fans come from all walks of life, yet are mostly tarred with the same brush. The Horror fiction genre is sneered at by the elitists and purists, and too often the word horror, when related to written fiction, is preceded by the word "schlock".
King himself knows this, and has fought long and hard to drag his chosen field of expertise to levels never believed possible, but even he acknowledges that stories like "silver Bullet" and "needful Things" operate on lower levels of appeal in the written word than most other popular literature.
As a short story/novella, The Long Walk was penned by King as one of his experimental forays away from the charicature monsters of werewolves, demon clowns, or devilish man-imps.
If youre looking for horror of that nature, then walk away..take a "long walk" away from this.
If, however, you do fancy the prospect of looking inwards to find monstrosities of human nature and greed and what we as humans will do to "succeed", and also what we as humans will do to entertain ourselves, this is a nightmare pretty much without parallel.
A genuine disturbing nightmare ...based on such basic simplicity.
Follow 100 teenage boys as they undertake a "walk" to achieve their dreams. Walk beside them and view the disintegration of their physical, spiritual, and moral fibre.
And as each one "buys a ticket"....feel your guts wrench as the gunshots echo.
By the time you reach the last 10, you`ll be sickened, enthralled, and yes, horrified.
Perhaps it is fitting, that the end of the story gives you a winner, but no idea of the dreams that were bestowed as a prize.

Go...now...buy it.
Trust me...you`ll never EVER forget that you read it...and you`ll never take a long walk again without the names of some of those boys gripping icily at your mind...as your legs cramp and your feet begin to ache.
Horror? Oh yea...THIS is Horror .


You will be with them every step of the way   December 6, 2007
Bezerus Bezby (Leeds, UK)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

One of King's finest tales- a brutal depiction of America as a militant state, where the mysterious major has devised a gruelling marathan- a 450 mile walk. It's only as the walk gets underway that you realise that opting out essentially means being shot.

King creates a vivid picture of the hopelessness and pain the long walkers experience. If you want to win, you must accept that all those with you must die. Ray Garraty, the hero of the story, questions why he entered the competition but never seems to question why it exists.

So well does King set the scene, that I swear my feet ached after reading this book. It is by no means a cheerful tale, but it is a tale of friendship, hope over adversity, tragedy and mildly like George Orwell's 1984. This is one of King's finest- certainly in the same league as the Shawshank redemption. It is also very moving and I will admit to shedding a tear or two.