I Am Legend is a post-apocalyptic, vampire novel following the remaining few months of life of the last man on Earth, Robert Neville. I Am Legend has been adapted into several films first into 'The Last Man On Earth' secondly 'The Omega Man' and most recently the straight to DVD film 'I Am Omega' and of course the most successful adaptation to date, starring Will Smith
I AM LEGEND.

I picked Ricahrd Matheson's I Am Legend from the library last week and read bits of it in between reading large chunks of Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel Dracula. I had known that the 2007 film I Am Legend, was based on Ricahrd Mathesons novel for a long time, but could never find the book anywhere so I just gave up trying to find the book and decided to watch the film first, I always like to read the original novel of a film first so I can compare and so I'm not influenced by the film. But I was not at all influenced by the film at all as the film and book were so unlike that they could have been two completely different stories overall.

in this original classic, Robert Neville is described as a blond-haired, blue-eyed, tanned, middle-aged man who has been living alone in the world for five entire months. The rest of the population floundered by vampirism. Neville does all he can to protect himslef from becoming one of them, determination set in his mind to prevent them from acquiring one drop of his blood. He is the only none-vampiric being, he spends his days repairing damages to his home and staking the damned, by night Robert Neville shuts himself away and drinks himself to sleep. Those who hunger for his blood demand him come out, they have forced cellabocy upon him, deprived him of true social contact, removed him of all human elements...Neville is on the brink of insanity, he wants nothing more than for his life to return to normal, for them to leave him alone...how long can the last man on Earth last?

However, in the 2007 I Am Legend film adaptation Robert Neville is portrayed by Will Smith, a completely different character in accordance to physical appearance, yet Will Smith played the part valiantly, making it one of my all time favourite films...I would probably say my most favourite!! The 'vampires' in the film do not appear to have as much humanity as the type that appeared in the original novel, they sleep in an odd circular formation, breath at a formidable rate and have more of a feral appearance to them. The dog which appears briefly in the book is already a companion to Robert Neville and assists Neville in capturing bait for the vampires so he is able to experiment on them. The dog, which is called Sam, has to been killed by Neville due to it turning into a vampiric dog, I actually cried at this scene.

If I'm truly honest, I preferred the I Am Legend film to the book, mainly 'cos it made me cry, and it's hard to make me cry at a film (I've only cried at two films I Am Legend and Marley & Me, both doggy deaths :O) also because it has a much more action-filled, emotional ending. But, nevertheless I'm not reviewing the film, I'm reviewing the book and giving it a four out of five star rating :D ( )

Interesting concept, boring realization. ( )

An excellent post-apocalypse vampire story. The ending is quite shocking and the sense of isolation felt by the central character well put across. A well-deserved classic.

This edition also contains a collection of macabre short stories written over a period of nearly 4 decades in the author's career. Some of them have very similar themes (haunting, personal possession, funeral parlours) and a couple of them fell flat for me. The best of these was probably Prey, where the spirit of a killer African doll attacks and then takes over a woman. ( )

This book is very good. It starts out with Robert Neville has to live with garlic everywhere and keep his house locked. When it becomes night all of the vampires come out. Robert tries to forget about the death of his wife while hunting his neighbor. He is the major character and is static. He is an protagonist and is round. ( )

Matheson is the master of post-apocalyptic fiction. The ultimate enemy of the last man on Earth is not the zombie-like vampires he faces nightly, but his own shattered psyche. And of course, the twist ending will leave you reeling. ( )