I Am Legend

Ive had I Am Legend on my list of books to read ever since I read an interview with Stephen King a couple of decades ago where he cited it as one of his favorite books ever. When I saw that the trailer for the soon to be released movie I knew that if I saw the movie first then Id never read the book. I ordered the copy from Amazon that had the coolest cover and read it when it arrived on Wednesday. First off, Ill be surprised if the newest movielization of this is any closer to the written story than The Last Man on Earth or Omega Man. The story is very well-played...but I was completely bamboozled by Amazon when I Am Legend came to an end halfway through the book, and I realized that the other half of the book was a collection of short-stories. I thought I had quite a bit of story left until I realized that the next chapter I had just begun was a completely different story. I looked the book over, and the only indication that the whole book wasnt I Am Legend was a small phrase on the back just above the bar-code...The complete novel, plus several more unforgettable tales. I cant really complain...more stories!...but I thought that it could have been a bit more apparent say...on the cover...or the spine...that Id bought half a book of filler.

The premise of this story is very simple. A man named Robert Neville is the last man alive on Earth. Everyone else have become vampires and this story is about Roberts life being alone in a world full of hideous beings. It is a very simple and basic premise and yet Richard Matheson has taken it and spun a really deep and complex tale out of it. All throughout the book, there are instances where we truly feel for Robert, the pain and frustration he goes through on a daily basis. He struggles with the isolation of being alone, the defeat of not able to find a cure for vampirism, the mysteries surrounding vampirism, and ultimately the seeming betrayal of a woman named Ruth, the only living being he knows after the plaque. Mr. Matheson describes all of this in beautiful, beautiful prose. Not only that, he also has a knack for creating believable characters; all of these characters, even his animal ones, behave the way they should, and it is a delight to read about them. There were some highly technical parts of the book which I felt dragged the pace down, but not too badly as to make the book feel too long-winded. For the most part, the story chugs along nicely. One more thing Ive noticed about I AM LEGEND was that it felt very allegorical of the problems we have in our world today. Man is a very territorial and violent species and we see that even in a post-apocalytic context, wars and conflicts of interest can still happen, and will happen. I am Legend is truly a triumph of story telling, Mr. Matheson was clearly at the top of his game when he wrote it.

I didnt like this book at all. Most probably because I watched the movie first and I am a big Will Smith fan. I realize the book was written first but there are a lot of people like me who bought the book thinking it was an adaptation of the movie, considering the jacket has a big picture of Will Smith on it. Well, since I thought the movie was awesome and I wanted to read what I thought would be an in-depth and detailed version of the movie, I settled down to enjoy, only to be surprisingly disappointed. I quickly realized that the book was almost completely different from the movie. First and foremost, the Neville that Will Smith plays in the movie is worlds apart from the wimpy, out of shape, slob of a guy in the book. Will Smiths character was strong, both physically and mentally and he was a scientist of some renown, doing expert tests and analysis to find a cure for the disease. The Neville in the book was an emotional un-kept wreck who smoked and drank himself into oblivion. Yuck! And its obvious that he doesnt have a clue about the disease because he has to drag himself out of a drunken stupor to go to the library and get books to learn about it. However, one of the biggest differences is that in the movie, Neville has a dog. It wouldnt be so bad but the dog (Sam) plays such a major part in the movie! I mean, a big part of what makes the movie so good is Nevilles relationship with his dog and she (Sam) is not even in the book! And on top of that, the mannequin (Dave) in the movie is actually Nevilles next door neighbor, turned vampire leader in the book. In the book the vampires actually talk and they attacked Nevilles house on a nightly basis. In the movie, they were more creatures than vampires and they didnt even know where Neville lived, at least not until the end. I understand that there are those who read the book first and because the movie was so different, they can justifiably complain about that, but the fact remains that this book was sold with Will Smith on the jacket. That, and the fact that this is nothing but a compilation of short stories that have nothing to do with each other is a gross deception to the consumer. I could go on and on about all the various things I found wrong with this book but why bother. Suffice it to say that the book was just boring. I couldnt even finish it. What a big disappointment...

Of course, most of us have seen the film I am Legend starring Will Smith. I liked most of the movie well enough, but wasnt very satisfied with the ending, so I thought I would give the book it was based on a try. Robert Neville is the sole survivor of a plague that has transformed the population into vampire-like creatures. Set in a California suburb in the mid seventies, this book chronicles Roberts daily activities of survival and understanding of the disease. He spends his days refortifying his home, restocking supplies, and exterminating any hibernating infected he comes across. By night, he hunkers down inside his home while the infected swarm outside, reminiscing about his deceased family, and studying the disease. He lives this way for several years when he encounters a woman out during the day, alone and wandering the town. Desperate for companionship, he makes a decision that changes everything and goes after her. The beginning of the book is very interesting. The reader is intrigued by what has happened that led to the current events of the story. The history behind the plague is revealed in bits and pieces, hooking the reader along. Roberts personal losses to the plague make the story much more compelling. The reader learns the nature of the disease alongside Robert, who is no doctor or scientist and after observation and trial and error, comes to his own conclusions about the plague. The final third of the book slows down a lot. By this point, all that there is to learn about the disease has been revealed and all the reader is left with is Robert and his loneliness, his own dehumanization as he lives in solitude. The book ends differently than the film, but is not really any better. The story was an okay read, but I feel I overpaid for it, especially for how old the story is. The story wasnt as good as I had hoped it would be. If you can acquire this book for free or for fairly cheap, then I would recommend it. But at the current kindle price of nearly six dollars, it is too much for a mediocre story.

Its a great read

First and foremost, this isn’t a novel about vampires so much as it is a novel about loneliness. Robert Neville is isolated for years without any outside contact as the vampire hoard lurked outside his door. The shifts in his mood between apathy, anger, depression, desperate hope, and at times seeming madness and cruelty made his character feel real and believable. The chapter about the dog was so human it was painful. I thought that Neville’s exploration and experimentation in order to understand what the vampires were exactly and how the world was taken so swiftly was interesting. I appreciated the scientific elements that tried to explain well established tropes about vampires, either explaining how they could be possible or separating the ones that were no more than superstition. Many of the assumptions made in the novel were actually reasonable. The experiments that he carried out on those afflicted with vampirism, both alive and dead, made him a monster. The glee with which he executed or experimented on vampires showed his devolution from human to something else. This is where the novel hits kind of a tail spin. I get where the author is going with the evolution of humanity and how moral Neville’s thirst for knowledge and understanding was, but I feel like the novel got a little bit contrived around the end. Most of the novel was spent wondering where it was going, seeming just a bit confused and lacking any real direction. This made the second half of the novel feel forced and left me feeling like I had whiplash. Even so, I Am Legend stands as a classic because it was influential in the development of the zombie genre and the concept of a world wide apocalypse caused by the spread of disease and I can completely understand why. Even though the affliction is officially branded vampirism and explains vampire lore, the creatures in the novel are different from the types of vampires one is used to from other works of fiction and I found it refreshing.

This is one of those rare cases where I saw a movie before I read the book it was based on. I enjoyed the film with Will Smith, but it was totally different than the book. To me, the film was more about the triumph of the human spirit; one man fighting for humanity. The book is more of a philosophical examination of what it means to be normal - part of the majority. Matheson chose vampirism to be his plague, but really, he could have chosen anything. The question becomes, is a person still normal when the rest of the world is different, is it right to keep fighting against change? Robert Neville is perhaps the last man on earth. He has barricaded himself in his house, and each night it is surrounded by vampires waiting for their prey to emerge. He wrestles with not only survival, but his very sanity. He needs a purpose to keep going, and finds it in a search for answers. Vampires were legends - but perhaps they were real all along. What causes vampirism? Is it just a bacteria? If so, how does he explain their fear of religious artifacts? The novel is written almost like a journal of Neville - only in third person. There is a lot of descriptions of what he does day to day, what he is thinking (or trying not to think about). Gradually, pieces of the past are put together for the reader to see how he came to be alone for 3 years. In the novel, there are 2 types of vampires - those infected but still alive, and the undead. The difference between them is crucial to the resolution of the story - though not necessarily in the way a reader may expect (or the way the movie ended). In the movie, the vampires are ravening, seemingly mindless creatures that the audience can easily side with Neville against. In the novel, they are intelligent and see Neville as a threat to their existence. Who has the right to survive? I think what made the novel most worth reading was finding out just what the title meant. The movie never explains it - the book makes it pivotal. Overall, the book is very slow (much like the movie) but makes a reader think more about what is happening than simply watching one man try to survive. And I highly recommend it - if only to know the ending that really needed to occur. Given that I Am Legend is a short novel, this edition is very nice for the inclusion of several other Matheson short stories. Even though Will Smith doesnt look like Neville as described in the book, Im still happy to see him on the cover!

Not at all what I expected, being familiar with so many adaptations of it. Im glad I finally read the original.

I enjoy end time(s) stories and this is a particularly good one written in 1954 by Richard Matheson. I have seen the movie I Am Legend (2007) and an earlier movie version of Mathesons story, The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston (1971). I think I prefer the written word, in this case, to either of the Hollywood renditions. I think Will Smith and Charlton Heston deliver outstanding performances in their respective movies and some of the cinematography in I Am Legend is striking with views of a deserted Manhattan replete with empty cars and stores, vegetation growing in the once bustling streets and wildlife roaming free in what was once one of our worlds greatest cities. Regardless, the world that Matheson conjured for me with words on paper is hard to best even with all the skills of modern film making. In this case, I dont know if my preference for the written word would be shared of others. Perhaps the problem for me is that the scope of these kinds of stories and their implications for the human species is so broad that even good writers, directors, and actors and modern cinematography have difficulty delivering the story with the same impact that words on a page, coupled with ones imagination, can produce. A counter example, for me, is Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings films based on J.R. Tolkiens marvelous three-volume triology of the same name. In that case, I was delighted to find that the actors and Mr. Jackson were up to the task - and what a task it was. Endings to stories or movies can always be discussed and debated, of course, so my personal opinion is that the ending of Richard Mathesons story and the ending of The Omega Man are better than the ending of I Am Legend. I would recommend this story (and both movies) to anyone who likes stories of survival set in end times or post-end times.

I remember seeing a preview for a movie called I Am Legend a few months back and it looked alright. When I started talking to some co-workers about it, they urged me to pick up the book before the movie comes out (about a month as of this writing). They couldnt say enough good things about Mathesons I Am Legend. So, I purchased it. From the moment I started the book, I knew what to expect, but I had no idea that this short (170 page) story would be so engrossing. It tells the story of one man, Robert Neville, who is the last man alive in a world that has been taken by vampires, living and dead. By day he hunts/gathers, studies, does work on his house; at night, he hides to survive another day to do it all over again. But how long can he keep it up? This book is both scary and funny, a very quick and easy read, yet highly enjoyable. The realization at the end of the book in the last few paragraphs really makes this book stand out as one of the most unique vampire tales that Ive ever read. The book also contains more short(er) stories from Matheson in the back. I havent read them yet, so no review on those, just I Am Legend. Defiantly worth picking up.