The Long Walk

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

In this number-one national best seller, "master storyteller" (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can beonly one winner - the one who survives.

In the near future, when America has become a police state, 100 boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is 16-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules - keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you're out - permanently.

With an introduction by Stephen King on "The Importance of Being Bachman".

©1979 Richard Bachman (P)2010 Penguin Audio

Hinting at Dystopia

I will start with the pro
As always King comes through with interesting characters and the characters may well make the book worthwhile for you.

Con
I did not mind that I purchased the book, but I would not do so if I had it all to do over again. I purchased the book because I like dystopian fiction and this story is dystopian, but it only hints at the dystopia. We are in America in present day, but people are disappeared for hinting at opposition to the status quo and for some reason the long walk occurs every year.

I am afraid of adding spoilers so I will leave it at that. The story contains insights into humanity that you find in the Hunger Games and Running Man. It really added nothing new or interesting to these books.

I realize that the author left many things unsaid on purpose. We can all wonder why he chose to do this, but in the end I felt it left too many why questions left for the reader at the end of the book. If those questions are not that important I can definitely say that the plot was not enough to hold the book together. I can state that life can be meaningless and that people like looking at car wrecks without the need to build a book.

Anticlimactic Ending

I liked it, but the ending left me confused. I wanted to know more about the state of the world they were living in. Overall, pretty good. But something was missing.

Really dark and deeply sad.

I think this one will stick with me for a long time. Very good book.

The Long Walk

Always my favorite of all of SK's short stories written as Richard Bachman, the audio version did not disappoint!

Great story, poor production

I haven't read this book for many years and I forgot how good it is. The narrator is good but the editing of the audio is poor. Ends of sentences are frequently clipped.

Not bad but needs some smoother editing.

Good story but there are a lot of abrupt edits that are off putting and take away from the experience overall.

Good concept, meh delivery

The concept was good, but storyline itself was linear and predictable. If you're looking for surprises, this isn't the book for you, However, as always, King delivers in terms of character development here, so that's a definite plus.

I liked it

It was easy to pay attention to, the narrative was a little annoying, but not too bad.

Bad Ending

This book kept me interested, but really didn't explain the competition walk very well.
I enjoyed the boy's interplay.
The ending was very disappointing. It made no sense.

Wow

For such a simple concept this book kept me fascinated from start to finish. I listened to it in one day. The narrator did a very good job and kept the pace very well.