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I Am Legend

Richard Matheson

Kindle Edition | Pages: 162 pages

Rating: 4.07 | 87374 Users | 5495 Reviews

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Original Title:	I Am Legend ASIN B00514HDNW
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Robert Neville
Setting:	Los Angeles, California(United States)
Literary Awards:	Tähtivaeltaja Award (2008)

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"I am legend". These words make me shudder. But if you have only seen that Will Smith movie that went 180 degrees on the book's message, the soul-crushing impact of these words will be lost on you.
That makes me sad...

To quote Stephen King, "I think the author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson." This was enough of a recommendation for me to go and dig up this book. And it's great.

(view spoiler)["Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.” (hide spoiler)]

Robert Neville, as you may already know from the countless cinematic adaptations of the story, seems to be a sole survivor of a vampirism-like pandemic. (The old-fashioned burn-in-the-sunlight stake-through-the-heart vampirism, none of that newfangled emo sparkliness.) Neville stakes vampires by day, and researches the cause of the plague in his spare time. The long segments of the story are devoted to the relentless monotony of his scientific pursuit of the vampirism mystery - which he does figure out, by the way. And it's quite neat.

We witness the years of deep depression, alcoholism, and the suffocating isolation, loneliness and despair. Then one day he meets Ruth who may be another survivor of the pandemic. And that's where any similarities to the movie stop, and the story becomes less of a lone-hero-tale and more of the soul-crushing-hopeless-revelation-tale.

(view spoiler)["And suddenly he thought, I'm the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man." (hide spoiler)]

The story of the lone righteous hero, the brave vampire hunter has a sure guaranteed readers' appeal (I, for instance, adore Stephen King's Salem's Lot). Matheson, however, brilliantly decides to take the road less traveled and turns the legend on its head. He introduces an unexpected perspective that forces the protagonist and the reader look at things in a new - and shocking - light. After all, the line between a hero and a horror is very thin, and usually very subjectively drawn.

This is not a traditional vampire story in any shape or form. There is no supernatural element - unless you think so of germs. Instead it involves evolution - of the hero and the monsters alike, and not in the ways that are comforting to the reader. The horror lies in its unsettling revelations about the human nature. It is also a story in which happy ending is impossible by default - which Hollywood, of course, promptly 'fixes'. At least Will Smith got a blockbuster out of the butchered story.



Given the number of the cinematic adaptations of this book, it continues to fascinate Hollywood. I'm just waiting for the day when they make one that actually captures the intended impact of Matheson's story.

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The writing is a bit dry, the science sections drag on a bit, and the protagonist is rather unlikable, but I forgive all this for the punch-in-the-gut impact the story had on me. 4 stars.

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Title	:	I Am Legend
Author	:	Richard Matheson
Book Format	:	Kindle Edition
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 162 pages
Published	:	May 14th 2011 by RosettaBooks (first published 1954)
Categories	:	Horror. Science Fiction. Fiction. Classics. Paranormal. Vampires. Apocalyptic. Post Apocalyptic. Fantasy

Rating Out Of Books I Am Legend

Ratings: 4.07 From 87374 Users | 5495 Reviews

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This book has been made into four seperate film adaptations. All of which deviate significantly from the novel. Why is that? Why meddle with brilliance? I read this AFTER seeing all four films, and none of those movies had anywhere near the impact the book did on me. It's dark, and gritty, and bleak. Its tells a tale of human loss and suffering and our stubborn will to survive. You could quite easily pick this up in another 50 years time and think it were set in the near future. It's incredibly

"I am legend". These words make me shudder. But if you have only seen that Will Smith movie that went 180 degrees on the book's message, the soul-crushing impact of these words will be lost on you.That makes me sad...To quote Stephen King, "I think the author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson." This was enough of a recommendation for me to go and dig up this book. And it's great. (view spoiler)["Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the

Richard Matheson may be the most underrated genre writer ever. When you look at a list of his books- I Am Legend, Somewhere In Time, Hell House, Duel: Terror Stories, What Dreams May Come- just to name a few, you realize how unique and diverse his talent was.This novel, I Am Legend, a perfect little bricolage of apocalyptic, dystopian, sci-fi, horror, vampire, zombie, is probably his best known work, although I'm partial to Somewhere in Time (Bid Time Return) being such a romantic

I Am Legend, Richard MathesonIt was influential in the development of the zombie-vampire genre and in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. Robert Neville appears to be the sole survivor of a pandemic that has killed most of the human population and turned the remainder into "vampires" that largely conform to their stereotypes in fiction and folklore: they are blood-sucking, pale-skinned, and nocturnal, though otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans.

I just finished reading this book. Completely different from the movie (The 2007 version), I wish they would have gone with this story instead. The reader spends the whole story (Which is really only 170 pages) following the last man on earth as he fights for his survival against vampires (and yes, they are vampires). He boards up his house, stocks up on canned goods, and researches a way to combat this disease. He is not a doctor or a scientist, just a regular man stuck in an irregular

This is another one of those times when there are people who if they could would give this book far more than the allowed 5 while if I were rating it on "enjoyment alone" I'd be looking to give it negative stars. I realize this is one of the "classics" of science fiction (or science fantasy)and I don't care. I read it years ago and while I find the writing in places rates my recognition of it's quality...I don't care for the book.Like some of Matheson's other works there are some questions that