I Am Legend

I get tired of the special-effects driven horror movies, all motion and no plot. Whatever happened to the stories where I felt a genuine sense of dread, and anticipation? Did they all disappear after Richard Matheson wrote his novella?

If you are wondering where all the zombie/vampire motifs originated from, you're looking at it. It's unsettling thinking about being surrounded by people - perhaps dead but still very much active - who are looking to you for their next meal. It's about being very lonely, after locking all the toxic people out of your life. Is it worth the fight to stay alive, if you are doomed to be alone?

The plot moves quickly and it's a page-turner. No slow spots. Try not to read it on a lonely winter night at your show more cottage, like I did. show less

I'm probably one of the only people who would say this is a very middle of the road book. Neville is very unlikable, which is what a lot of people agree upon. Half the reviews here even say Neville is a bad or unlikeable character.

I have no idea how this book influence zombie novels when they keep saying things like garlic, crosses, and other things used to kill vampires. My rating is partially reflecting on the fact that this went on to inspire so many terrible zombie books that nobody needed. It's like the worst aspects of the book got dragged into a bad translator and everyone came out taking those as the real content. The monsters are vampires not zombies. How this inspired works like The Walking Dead content boggles my mind. We show more could have had a vampires like this fully done.

Now the writing is wonderful. I deeply wanted Neville to suffer just because I know he's torturing people especially loved ones and children. To the point that he even mentions he is thinking of raping a woman when she walks in on his life.

I think most people forget that Neville is admitting in the book that he would rape people because he is such a danger. No-nut November wasn't enough for him.

I honestly forgot that the end is basically a world takeover by a new breed of vampires. And up many ways it feels like no matter the state living or vampire or undead there will always be one race against the other and people fighting and killing.

I wish Neville had truly realized that maybe humanity is the worst thing and not tried to bring it back. But alas, he wanted to find that cure so bad.

I think this book for existing and causing some of the best and worst content I've ever seen. Even if I outright hate a book I would never say that it needs to be burned or writing is bad and thus doesn't deserve to exist. I Am Legend serves as a stepping stone. And I certainly would say that this is a better book to have in colleges and high schools than some of the other suggestions. But by no means is this a perfect book.

Again, I appreciate this book and I think that it's good but I don't think that it's perfect. There are better books, and there are much much more interesting main characters than Robert Neville.

May he rest in his Legend. show less

Kui ma saaksin, annaksin ma sellele raamatule 6 punkti. Või isegi 7. Üks kõige võimsamaid elamusi viimasel ajal, ja mis kõige hämmastavam -- lugema hakates ei osanud ma seda isegi karta.
On hulk raamatuid, mida lugema hakates kuuled oma tuttavatelt, et jah, see on väga hea. Tegelikult on see siis tavaliselt lihtsalt hea või noh, enam-vähem kõlblik. Ka seekord läks algus suht samamoodi, lisaks ei pakkunud loo algus eriti midagi.
Muidugi olin ma filmi näinud. Muidugi ma arvasin, et ma tean, millest lugu räägib. Aga sittagi. Ja ma olen selle üle nii õnnelik, nagu ma ammu pole olnud :D
Selleks hetkeks, kui asi jõudis koerani, vist umbes loo keskel, olin ma juba kõrvuni sees. See raamat oli nagu vesiliiv -- pealtnäha täiesti show more mittemidagiütlev, tavaline, lausa igav, aga enne, kui arugi sain, oli õhk otsas ja emotsioonid käisid pea kohal kokku.
Tagantjärele ütleb mingi sisetunne, et see lugu sobib samasse ritta nagu McCarthy "Teel", kuigi otseseid paralleele nende vahel tõmmata ei saa. Ainult elamuse intensiivsus, üllatuse tugevus ja puhas nauding, mille saab tõeliselt heast loost.

PS: Mulle meeldis film ka väga. Ja meeldib ka pärast raamatu lugemist. Ja mul on hea meel, et neil kahel pole muud ühist, kui peategelse nimi. Pealkirjade sarnasus on puhas juhus :) show less

"How long did it take for a past to die?"

I think this is a wonderful example of how a book got the story oh so right. And the movie got it oh so wrong. It's hard to believe the movie and the book are even the same thing.

The book is rich in landscape - describing the desolation and how very alone he is. It chronicles his average day, his struggle to live up to the idea that he is Legend - the last man. Can he solve the world problem and make it better. It would be hard to hope for more - more people, more science. It would be hard to hope.

Especially with these creatures around. They stalk him and it's all he can do to stay a live.

But I love the old line about staring into the abyss - because sometimes in our struggle to fight our demons, show more we have to become one to beat them.

If you watch the movie, watch the alternate ending. It's closer to the book show less

Siempre había tenido eso de no leer libros cuyas películas había visto antes, pero después de tomarme la licencia con algunos libros gracias a retos de lectura, me he quitado ese prejuicio de encima y doy gracias por eso.

Nunca de los nuncas me habría imaginado que este libro fuera tan diferente a la pelicual, otro gracias por eso, no me malinterpreten, me gusta Will Smith y la película, aunque no es de mis favoritas, bueno esta bastante bien, pero no, no le llega a este libro ni a la punta del dedo chiquito del pie.

¡Que pedazo de libro!, tengo que empezar diciendo que soy una amante de la ciencia ficción, si además es un libro distópico pues más y si además es post apocalíptico, ¿qué más puedo pedir?.

Al principio asumí show more que se trataba de otro libro de vampiros, pero con un twist, considerando que todo comienza aparentemente gracias a un contagio bacterial, así que así vemos a este hombre que por alguna razón desconocida no se ha contagiado y tampoco ha sido “cazado” por los vampiros, lucha día a día con su soledad, con la tristeza de haber perdido no solo a su familia si no todo el mundo que conocía, lo vemos deprimirse, lo vemos organizar su solitaria vida para continuar sobreviviendo un día si y el otro también, luchando con sus demonios internos y con los que lo esperan en la oscuridad afuera de su puerta, después se vuelve él mismo en un cazador de vampiros.

No voy a decir más, solo decirles que ese final es… wow, más que sorprendente, único, nunca me lo habría esperado, entonces es ahí donde vemos realmente la vuelta de tuerca y es donde el título toma sentido.

La premisa con la que Matheson trabaja este libro es, simplemente una genialidad, ¿porque no? se trata de la evolución, se trata de cómo los seres en este planeta se adaptan, si bien nuestro protagonista lo llama una bacteria mutante, yo diría más bien que es adaptación natural al ambiente en el que toca vivir.

Así que ¿quien es el monstruo?

Fabuloso, narrado maravillosamente, un libro que se me ha hecho corto, tiene poco menos de 200 páginas, pero me pareció más corto que eso porque me ha atrapado desde la página uno.

Muy recomendable y fuera de que el protagonista es el único sobreviviente sobre la faz de la tierra, no hay nada más que se pueda relacionar con la película. show less

What originality and imagination—a very different take on the vampire legend, its explanation of vampirism based on science (or 1950s science anyway) rather than the supernatural.
    The setting is the aftermath of a future war; and, while Robert Neville’s side do seem to have “won” it, it wasn’t much of a victory: although there’s no mention of ruined cities, there are intense dust storms, plagues of insects and disease. Oh yes, and the human population have been turned into vampires. So far as he knows, Neville is the only exception—immune, maybe, to whatever has caused this transformation—but it’s not much of a life: at night the vampires encircle his house trying to tempt or anger him enough to step outside; and show more during the daylight hours, while they sleep in dark corners and abandoned buildings, he has to repair his heavily fortified home, raid the deserted supermarkets for supplies, service the generator, refuel the station wagon… Above all, he must be back indoors by sundown when his tormentors return. Evenings he plays music to drown out the crashing of rocks against the shuttered windows, or drinks, tortured by loneliness, rage and by memories of his wife and daughter.
    Then a near-disaster changes everything: badly drunk one evening, he simply forgets to wind his watch. Next day, the watch having stopped, he’s still out in the open miles from home with night approaching. What happens next shocks him out of his stupor and he starts raiding the public libraries now too, begins to study: virology at first, then cell biology, physiology, medicine—and books from the fiction shelves about the vampire itself. He’s on a quest to understand them and, perhaps, somehow survive all this.
    I Am Legend explores the theme which runs through so many of Matheson’s later stories too, such as The Shrinking Man: of a castaway (because that’s what they are) marooned by fate in a suddenly alien world, left utterly alone and battling both the world itself and his own loneliness. And, just as in The Shrinking Man, the ending here is brilliant. show less

I read this for class and my expectations were WAY exceeded. The brilliance of this book makes that movie with Will Smith seem horribly butchered. It doesn't really have anything to do with the book anymore.

In the book, Robert Neville tries to come to terms with his fate as the last man on earth which makes the book quite philosophical. But there are also some fun occurrences of intertextuality, for example when he rants about Bram Stoker's Dracula. Unlike in a lot of vampire stories, Neville even tries to explain the existence of vampires by scientific means, by reading up on microbiology and experimenting on vampires during the day.

It's a very compelling read, one of the few books I've read within such a short period of time. It's a show more very impressive book for its time (1954). show less