The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King

by Stephen King, Richard Bachman

The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King

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5236 ratings, 3.98 average rating, 206 reviews (more data...)

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published

September 23rd 1996 (first published 1986) by Signet

binding

Paperback, 944 pages

setting

Unknown

isbn

0451147367 (isbn13: 9780451147363)

description

The name on the covers was Bachman. But the imagination could only belong to one man. A compelling collection of four spellbinding stories of future s...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 5914)

All ratings | 5 stars (1621) | 4 stars (1940) | 3 stars (1367) | 2 stars (246) | 1 star (23) | avg 3.98

all | this edition

Jennifer

Jennifer rated it:

(review of isbn 0453005071)

07/24/07

bookshelves: horror, scifi

Read in September, 1991

recommends it for: King fans

Road Work is the only weak link in this book, although legend has it that Rage is out of print finally (probably to King's great relief).

Rage - 20 years before high school massacres started in America, King wrote this story of a misunderstood and clearly mentally ill kid going apeshit and holding his classroom hostage.

The Long Walk - Once a year, one representative from each state, all boys around 18, set off walking at 4 MPH. If they slow down, they get warned. Afte...more

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Mark

Mark rated it:

07/16/07

bookshelves: stephenking

recommends it for: fiction fans

I think this was my second or third King book. It collects all but Thinner of the original five Bachman novellas.
"The Running Man" I already reviewed. Better than (and WAY different from) than the movie
"The Long Walk" I also already reviewed. it's one of my favorite stories of all time. Love it.
"Roadwork" I don't remember all that well, but I know I liked it.
"Rage" was the controversial one. It's about a student who took his high sc...more

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Alex

Alex rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

12/11/08

In order of preference:

The Long Walk: For my money this is the best thing Stephen King has ever written, and this is coming from a guy who has probably read 75% of his work. I first read this novella probably close to eight years ago, and I still remember the emotions and excitement it conjured up.
The Running Man: Great piece of dystopian suspense. Nothing at all like the movie, as delightfully trashy as that flick is.
Rage: Surreal, disturbing short novel. An uncomfortabl...more

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Gabriel

Gabriel rated it:

08/01/08

Read in August, 2008

This is a collection of four novels. As I finish them, I will write mini-reviews for them.

Rage: While unrealistic in many senses, this has been among the most interesting and gripping Stephen King story I've read yet. The mob mentality that is created and the twist that makes this horror instead of just a thriller is something that could have come off as amaturish, but works really well under King's hand. The horror in this story is namely in that in underminds all the classical ...more This is a collection of four novels. As I finish them, I will write mini-reviews for them.

Rage: While unrealistic in many senses, this has been among the most interesting and gripping Stephen King story I've read yet. The mob mentality that is created and the twist that makes this horror instead of just a thriller is something that could have come off as amaturish, but works really well under King's hand. The horror in this story is namely in that in underminds all the classical stereotypes of what a good American (because King is rooted in the US culture) should do and how they should react. It is, in essence, King's version of Lord of the Flies ... but I found this one to be more interesting and a lot better.

The Long Walk: This, along with The Running Man, is probably the reason why newcomers to King's work would pick up this collection. The Long Walk is, essentially, the American version of Battle Royale (and yes, BR did come much later). The best part is, though, that by focusing his story on one stretch of highway and specifically on a certain set of boys in the group of 200 that start the walk, King allows the reader to understand the emotions and sanity levels of the group entire. While many situational pieces are missing in this story (How did this start? Why did some of these people actually sign up for it? What does the rest of the US look like in this future?), the intense focus of the story does allow the reader to delve deep into many other questions and ignore the nagging world around them. Very cool sections where the writing matches the characters' mindsets ... if only King could have made the entire piece work out that way!

Roadwork: King's assessment was correct, this is the worst of the bunch. Written with the flaws of a Dean Koontz novel (without the interesting plot ... which really says something), this plodding piece of trash made me cringe from all the bad writing. The main flaw, King tried too hard. His novel about "something serious" ended up being too long and had as much subtlety as a few jackhammers. I can understand the need to write to exorcise a few demons (in the introduction, he claims he wrote this piece when dealing with his mother's "painful death" the year before), but many of the pieces that come out of that much pain should not see the light of day ... read any high schooler's poetry for examples. Or read Roadwork. Or better yet, don't.

Running Man: Easily the most entertaining of the bunch, it is a simple story told with little or no MESSAGES. The closest to a pulp fiction story you can get without the massive violence (although the end is a little gory ... which is not a bad thing). I greatly enjoyed this one and read it the quickest of the four. No wonder it was made into an Arnold Schwarzenneger movie (though I haven't seen that yet). It fits that mode of quick action-no thinking that his movies have in common.

Overall: A nice collection of Richard Bachman/Stephen King books. It was interesting to see King trying new and/or different things with these. While they may not be among his best works, they are (with one exception) very enjoyable popular fiction works and two of them - Long Walk and Running Man - do rank among his better works. Thumbs up!...less

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Richie

Richie rated it:

(review of isbn 0451191935)

06/25/08

bookshelves: stephen-king

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Richie by: I read all King books, so this one was on my radar after reading
recommends it for: King fans who have read other King books and want to see what else is out there!

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Four books in one. Lets break down each book starting with Rage. Rage is a book that takes place in a very small setting. dealing with a school shooting and the events and despair that lead the main character to bring a gun to school. A really good book that paints a very detailed picture of what a lifetime of being demeaned by your father can lead to. I would rate this first story a 2.5 out of 5. I didn't get really get into it, it seemed like it could be very real (especially with all the curr...more Four books in one. Lets break down each book starting with Rage. Rage is a book that takes place in a very small setting. dealing with a school shooting and the events and despair that lead the main character to bring a gun to school. A really good book that paints a very detailed picture of what a lifetime of being demeaned by your father can lead to. I would rate this first story a 2.5 out of 5. I didn't get really get into it, it seemed like it could be very real (especially with all the current school shootings happening every few months in the US). It seemed like non-fiction, and quite a detour from what King's other works are like.

Second "book" The Long Walk. This was the best story in the book. A very odd book, which takes quite a while to get going, but once it all becomes clear you won't believe what you are reading. The book is based on a walk that takes place in an un-named future, where 100 boys start out walking and don't stop till there is only one left. The odd part about this walk is that if you stop you get strike one, stop again and it's strike 3 and you are on warning, fourth strike and you are shot by the military guard that is following the walk. Out of the 100 walkers you get to know quite a few, following a core group of about 6 as they talk about their hopes and dreams as they die off one by one. I give this a 4.5 out of 5.

Third story is Roadwork. This story also has a very "non-fiction" feel to it. King really gets into the details, which is why I love his writings. This is a story about a guy who's house is set for demo due to a new highway that is being built. He basically looses it and decides he just doesn't care. In the process of the book he looses everything, his job, his wife and in the end his house. I would say that this is the #2 story in this book, a close second behind "The Long Walk". I would rate a 4 out of 5.

The Running Man is a great book, and if I hadn't seen the 80 movie with Arnold Swartzenhager it would have been more enjoyable. On one hand it was kinda interesting that while I was reading the book, I would picture the characters I was reading about as the actual characters from the movie. The downfall is that the movie is nothing like the movie, and having seen the movie first, in my head the book just seemed "wrong". A good book, many details - even if it was pretty un-realistic. Kings sci-fi isn't up to par with his horror writing, but this is a pretty good book to breeze through. I would give it a 2 out of 5, just due to the fact that it was less enjoyable because of the movie.

Over all this is a great book, 4 stories (some of the newer printings only have 3 stories due to the fact that Rage is out of print because of the Columbine shootings). This book was originally written under the pen name Richard Bachman and only released as paperback books. Once it was revealed that Bachman was King the books were put together in this book with Kings name on it. I rate the entire book a 4 out of 5, all the stories stand on their own, but some are better than others....less

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Lindsay

Lindsay rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

06/28/07

bookshelves: stuff-by-the-king

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: anyone who loves the King and his early work

I should say here that I'm willing to swap this book on the condition that I get it back, but not sell it.
In King's earlier years, he was a big name in the horror genre, and was churning out novels faster than anyone else. He had published a handful under a pseudonym because the publishers didn't want to saturate the market with his name, hence, Richard Bachman came into existence.
"The Bachman Books" is really fantastic. It's a collection of four novellas: "Rage,"...more

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Hank

Hank rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

09/08/08

bookshelves: dystopian-fiction-quest

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: dissatisfied teens, fans of reality television

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mattomic

Mattomic rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

05/24/07

I was an extremely late bloomer, relatively speaking, when I got into reading. In fact, as I was growing up, I was never encouraged to read except by teachers, who made it feel like a chore and unenjoyable. Well, enter my high school freshman year. I decided to "discipline" myself by "forcing" myself to read more. What did I choose to start with? My best friend's mother's fantastic personal library, its shelves spilling with the best in popular fantasy novels (from Tolkien to...more

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John

John rated it:

(review of isbn 0453005071)

08/22/07

Read in January, 1989

This probably doesn't actually deserve five stars, but I'm giving them partially out of nostalgia. This was the first Stephen King I ever read, because my mom was talking with her cousin about how bloody and awful his stuff was, and how they couldn't even get through "Pet Sematary" because it was too scary, and I thought, at age 11, "I have to read this stuff right now". Mom wouldn't let me buy a King book, and I was afraid someone would stop me, so I snuck this from the grow...more

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Kathryn

Kathryn rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

06/14/08

bookshelves: horror

You can definitely see that these are VERY early works by Stephen King (What? Bachman is really King? I totally didn't see that! </sarcasm>) but "The Long Walk" is one of his best stories. King is at his best when he either a)takes a normal, everyday idea and makes it horrifying or b)takes a horrifying idea and writes it up as a normal, everyday situation. "The Long Walk" uses the second technique, and it's frightening how quickly you can believe that one hundred people...more

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Kevin

Kevin rated it:

01/18/08

bookshelves: stephen-king

Read in April, 1990

This may be the best thing Stephen King has ever done. Four short novels, all of them pure gold; "Rage" and "Roadwork" are two of my all-time favorites. The great thing about King-as-Bachman is that there's never a happy ending, which means that you're never even vaguely sure what's going to happen. Sometime in the last few years the collection has been broken into three individual paperbacks, with "Rage" being left out of print because SK thinks that somehow it ...more

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Bill

Bill rated it:

(review of isbn 0453005071)

08/08/07

These books, written before King became a household name, show an astonishing ability to tell a story from an early age. The first novel, which King has pulled from publication, Rage, is better than its subject material in many ways and shows directions King would take later on. The Long Walk and The Running Man are science fiction stories set in realistic near futures, and Roadwork is a mainstream novel about loss. None of them are particularly great, but all of them show the sort of storyte...more

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Katie

Katie rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

06/03/08

bookshelves: 1999, 2001, age-adult, horror

Read in January, 2001

Winter 1999 - I read both Rage and The Long Walk. I really enjoyed both of these--they're very dark and intense. I remember my mother telling me about The Long Walk when I was younger and it was cool to finally read it. It was written so many years ago, but today we have game shows like "Survivor" that do this sort of contest in a less extreme way... but someday, who knows?

Winter 2001 - I only read Rage. This story intrigues me as it is really a character study--what if...more

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Ballz

Ballz rated it:

(review of isbn 0453005071)

08/20/07

Read in October, 1996

recommends it for: Every one

The Long Walk was really good.
Rage was really good.
I don't think I read Roadwork.
But I have to put down the Running Man. I've read that book at least 6 or 7 times. I think it's one of the best uncredited cyberpunk novels ever. I think almost every aspect of it is brilliant. The final segments of Richards, intestines spewed all over the plane, SO good. It's an excellent bit of dystopian work. The sense of being inside a huge invisible malignant machine. King, in this book, does,...more

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Julia

Julia rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

02/25/08

Read in January, 1984

recommended to Julia by: Paul Matthew Kano, jr, my brother
recommends it for: Fans of Stephen King

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, and his short stories under the pen name of Richard Bachman include The Running Man, Rage (a short story about a high school student who takes his anger out on his classmates and teacher in school has been pulled out of publication by Stephen King after the violence of school shootings in Springfield, OR and Columbine High School in Colorado), The Mangler, The Lawnmower Man and many more wonderfully imaginative and suspenseful tales. I enjoy short sto...more

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Julie

Julie rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

12/13/08

Read in January, 1987

I read this 20 years ago and still remember the stories. Now they are eerily familiar in today's world.....

The Long Walk was by far the best novella in the quartet, a quietly horrifying read.

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Rowena

Rowena rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

12/14/07

Has a copy to sell/swap

To be honest, I've only read the first two short stories in this anthology. Of the two, I liked The Long Walk better but Rage was fascinating in its portrayal of the inner demons of troubled teens. The topic is very tricky, and apparently two separate teen shooters were found with the book on them after they embarked on killing sprees. The book was subsequently banned so I believe my copy is somewhat rare..

The Long Walk was astounding. SK was able to convey a sense of raw and undilut...more

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Miranda

Miranda rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

12/31/08

The Long Walk is my favorite of Stephen King's short stories. Extremely powerful and disturbing to read. I read it years ago and it still sticks in my mind.

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Deborah

Deborah rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

12/16/08

This is four stories. I really enjoyed The Long Walk. Then Rage was my second favorite followed by The Running Man. I was not big on Roadwork.

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Dérick

Dérick rated it:

(review of isbn 0452277752)

01/06/09

bookshelves: currently-reading

I just finished Rage and I'm in the middle of The Long Walk. Excellent book... I really enjoyed it! The Long Walk was the best of all.

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How many books did Stephen King write under the pseudonym Richard Bachman?
a. 4
b. 5
c. 6
d. 7
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