Publishers Weekly considered it a "tiresome journey" for anyone not interested in New Age philosophy, with "no surprises", and stated that Block should have "channeled his positive energy elsewhere".
[2] Kirkus Reviews declared it to be "naive, preachy, and dull", and "psychospiritual babble", with the only suspense being several vignettes about a serial killer who eventually joins the walkers.
[3] At the New York Times, Marilyn Stasio similarly felt that the text was improved by the serial killer, whose presence she found reminiscent of Block's earlier works, but ultimately judged the conclusion as "too elusive to sustain the narrative".
[4] AudioFile, reviewing the 2003 audiobook version, was even blunter, calling the book "truly dopey", with "mawkishness (of) insufferable proportions".
[5] Block has described the writing of Random Walk as "the most extraordinary writing experience (he) ever had": one day in 1987, he thought of the central image of a man literally walking away from his life, and found it interesting; he then thought about it in greater detail for three days while driving from his Florida home to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.