Sprengstoff

King said it's the weakest novel in The Bachman Books collection so I was dreading what abomination it could be if The Long Walk was already one star material. But it was not so. Written between Salem's Lot and The Shining it's sort of a writing exercise that would be perfected in the latter book.

While not outstanding I was intrigued almost all the way through though the ending has a bit smaller bang than I hoped for. I couldn't even bring myself to finish last ten pages late at night, finished them in the morning instead. Theme of losing sanity is among my favorites (it's why I love Philip K. Dick and The Shining) so this single thing kept me going with this novel. Not as good as The Running Man but far better than The Long Walk. It had structure, it had a story, it had character motivation. I can't say the same about The Long Walk.