A
book written by
Stephen King under the
pseudonym Richard Bachman. It's about a man in a
dystopian
future who is a
contestant on a
popular game show run by
Big Brother. The idea is that you, a
convicted felon, start in the game
studio, and get a one-hour head start. For every hour you survive before you are hunted down by the show's
hit men, or
civilians looking for the lucrative
bounty on you head, the
cash prize that will be paid out to your loved ones grows. If you survive past a certain amount of time, you win the
big jackpot and get to survive. The prevalence of
remote cameras placed pretty much
everywhere by
the state made this very difficult.
This was later made into a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governer of Minnesota Jesse Ventura. In the movie, the running man had to do battle with a gauntlet of gladiators, and he wasn't supposed to win, just die.