Paperback, 286 pages
Español language
Published Feb. 28, 1987 by Martínez Roca.
Una inquietante novela futurista donde la realidad supera a la fantasía más terrorífica.
El escenario: una sociedad ultraconservadora que ha llevado al paroxismo sus rasgos más perversos, dominada por un estado policial.
El acontecimiento: la más extraordinaria competición deportiva, una agotadora marcha a pie donde un traspié puede ser el último.
Los competidores: cien adolescentes elegidos a sorteo y decididos a pasar sobre los cadáveres de sus compañeros para llegar a la meta.
El premio: fama y fortuna para el ganador, es decir, para el único superviviente...
Solo uno será el triunfador, los 99 restantes morirán.
God I love this one so much. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to read something cover to cover, but this is one of the rare ones that keeps me pushing through the eye strain. A severely underrated classic in its simplicity.
Gobsmackingly funny but bleak beyond repair. I enjoyed every page but it's just too goddamn bleak.
So, the book's about a bunch of dead men walking. I didn't really care for the social commentary that's supposed to be there if you squint your eyes. Past the premise, past the setup, the author didn't care either. Death men don't care.
It's also about a bunch of kids dying. Kids who don't know any better. They get to learn though. Not much. But they wizen up to how wrong they were about everything. Disabused of their convictions about their bodies, strength. Their minds, their fancy plans. A long, strung out, emphasized, capitalized but pointless lesson. Divine enlightenment during bad trip that doesn't seem to end. Raw reality received and processed but soon to be forgotten, too absurd to be any useful. You drop when you drop. Till then, maybe you get to …
Gobsmackingly funny but bleak beyond repair. I enjoyed every page but it's just too goddamn bleak.
So, the book's about a bunch of dead men walking. I didn't really care for the social commentary that's supposed to be there if you squint your eyes. Past the premise, past the setup, the author didn't care either. Death men don't care.
It's also about a bunch of kids dying. Kids who don't know any better. They get to learn though. Not much. But they wizen up to how wrong they were about everything. Disabused of their convictions about their bodies, strength. Their minds, their fancy plans. A long, strung out, emphasized, capitalized but pointless lesson. Divine enlightenment during bad trip that doesn't seem to end. Raw reality received and processed but soon to be forgotten, too absurd to be any useful. You drop when you drop. Till then, maybe you get to shoot the shit with a bunch of other unlucky bastards. But that's it.
It's also about a bunch of people dying in a very horrific way. Public, absurd, without dignity. Unrealistically twisted but all too recognizable. A merciless and hopeless gauntlet without any winners. It's a competition but not really. The only game, a game of chance versus their bodies. Against their minds.
All in all, it's all a decent metaphor, a good one even. And King can tell a good yarn. But I don't like it. Just too damn bleak. There are sunnier metaphors out there and fuck it if they're not just as true. I want to forget about this book.
Buen planteamiento de la trama, pero un poco pobre al final.
