Talent versus luck: this was a question that plagued Stephen King after his initial success as an author. How much of his success was due to talent, and how much due to the cult following he had amassed, and the fact that people bought his books because of him, rather than because of his writing. Consumed by this philosophical dilemma, King created a pseudonym, Richard Bachman, and authored a series of books under this name, intending to use their success as a barometer; would they be wildly successful, thereby validating his writing talent, or would they be less so, suggesting that it was his name, and not his genius, that had books flying from the shelves.
The Long Walk was one of the Bachman-attributed books King authored. It was published in 1979, and again in 1985 within a collection called The Bachman Books. The book revolves around a bizarre walking contest held annually in a futuristic dystopia based loosely on the United States, or at least what the United States would be like if ruled by an egotistical military dictator.
The novel is unusual in that it was the first that King actually wrote, even though there was a thirteen year gap between penning the book and publishing it. He began writing it whilst a freshman at the University of Maine, setting it aside for several years and returning to it long after he had written his first novel, Carrie, in 1974.
On the face of it, the book strikes readers as one that would be perfect for big screen adaptation; however, timing was always an issue and a sticking point. By the time the theme du jour was dystopian contests of teen endurance, the uber popular Hunger Games had hit movie theaters, almost pre-empting the more basic, yet also more dystopian, King original. Nonetheless, New Line Cinema announced in April 2018 that they would be developing a film adaptation of the novel.
King continued to write as both himself and under the Bachman name, publishing five more books , including The Running Man and the final Bachman novel Blaze, which came out in 2007. Under his own name, King has published over two hundred short stories, fifty eight novels and numerous articles. His latest novels have included two collaborations with his son, each King contributing alternate chapters and co-writing the final chapter as a final twist of suspense with two distinct perspectives on the original story.
