"The Most Dangerous Game" -- Richard Connell (COLLIER'S WEEKLY, January 19, 1924)

I was so excited to see this story come up next in The Big Book of Adventure Stories, readers.  I've seen at least six different film adaptations, ranging from the serious 1932 film, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong (and which was shot at night on the same sets Wray and Armstrong were on by day shooting KING KONG!) to the cheesy 1980s sci-fi bimbo-rama SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY starring Brinke Stevens, and which was once famously condemned on the Senate floor by Jesse Helms.  And of course, by 2013, the theme of a wealthy man hunting other men for sport has become almost cliche.  I was excited to see how the original short story held up compared to the various adaptations and takes on the theme I'd seen, and let me tell you, Richard Connell's prose did not disappoint.

Sanger Rainsford, a prominent big game hunter from New York, is sailing to Rio de Janeiro with his friend Whitney in order to hunt jaguars.  One dark night, the two men are sitting on deck and find themselves discussing the upcoming hunt, with Whitney pondering what the jaguars must think of it.  Rainsford scoffs at this line of thought, and Whitney retires to bed.  Rainsford stays on deck smoking his pipe, until startled by a trio of pistol shots echoing from nearby Ship-Trap Island, causing him to drop his pipe.  Fumbling for it in the dark, he falls overboard, and when he realizes he can't swim fast enough to catch back up to the ship, makes for Ship-Trap Island.

On the island, Rainsford is stunned to discover an elegant chateau, and soon learns that the island is home to a pair of Cossacks (an ethnic group that's strangely become a theme around here...) -- the aristocratic General Zaroff and his deaf-mute servant, Ivan.  Zaroff is a big game hunter as well, and in fact is a great admirer of Rainsford's books on hunting.

Over dinner, Zaroff explains to Rainsford how over many years, he's grown bored with hunting, and finds no thrill in hunting big game animals any more -- but has found a new prey, "the most dangerous game." On Ship-Trap Island, Zaroff lures ships aground and hunts the people he captures from these wrecks for sport.  He asks Rainsford to join him in a hunt, and when Rainsford, appalled, refuses, Zaroff decides to hunt him instead.

Given a few hours' head start, Rainsford must survive three days without being shot by Zaroff or torn to bits by either Ivan or Zaroff's pack of hunting dogs.  If, at the end of three days, Rainsford is still alive, Zaroff pledges to put him safely ashore on the mainland with no ill will.  It will take all of Rainsford's cunning and intellect to survive...

"The Most Dangerous Game" is a brilliant exercise in "less is more."  The story doesn't quite fill nine pages in The Big Book of Adventure Stories (ten including the introduction), but doesn't need more than that to tell itself.  The writing is as lean and wolfish as Zaroff himself, unfettered with purple prose.

This sparseness of story-telling may be a turn-off to modern readers; it's a tale of suspense and tension, not of violence and blood-letting, and I think if readers come in expecting a battle royale they'll be deeply disappointed.  The emphasis is on the fraying of Rainsford's nerves as he struggles to survive in the face of Zaroff, an almost supernaturally-talented hunter, and his efforts to maintain a strong enough control of himself to fight back.

In fact, so little emphasis in the story is on violence that the finally conflict between Zaroff and Rainsford doesn't even take place "on screen" as it were; the second-to-last paragraph ends with Zaroff accepting Rainsford's offer of a man-to-man fight, while the last paragraph, only a sentence long, describes Rainsford settling in to rest up and recuperate after his ordeal.  The fight is left entirely to the reader's imagination, which is a bold move that I don't think would fly today.