I Am Legend (1954)

A vampire apocalyptic future world where a virus has ravaged mankind. Robert Neville is the last human man remaining and the vampires are after him. Every day he goes out to hunt and scavenge amidst the ruins of his city and at night he barricades himself inside and hopes he'll live.

I couldn't get into the writing on this one, though this is right up my alley. I am surprised by that! There is also a movie by the same name starring Will Smith that took liberties with the story for Hollywood. I watched that so maybe I ruined my experience of the book.

I'm glad if you enjoyed this book; please continue to support the author in any way you can!

**All thoughts and opinions are my own.** ( )

Decent if uneven b- and beach-read. ( )

I'd been meaning to read I Am Legend for a while before finally getting around to it. In the meantime I'd seen Francis Lawrence's film adaptation. I knew changes had been made to the story for the film, but I naively thought they were going to be simple plot changes: a character dies who had survived or vice versa, someone is introduced sooner, maybe even something bigger like Will Smith finding a cure where the novel's Neville had failed or again vice versa. I was wholly unprepared for the humdinger of a change: the very nature and meaning of the story to be flipped, turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how I became the Prince of– no, wait, that's a different Will Smith thing. Let me start again.

The essence of the story is that a curious affliction has struck humanity; perhaps just the west coast of the US, maybe the whole of the US, or maybe even the whole world. This affliction turns people into vampires, complete with an aversion to ultraviolet light and a weakness to having dirty great stakes thrust through their thorax. Robert Neville lives alone in Los Angeles researching the disease to which he is immune, hoping to find a cure, and killing the afflicted in his spare time.

His humdrum existence (told, to be honest, via rather humdrum prose) is shaken when he meets Ruth, a second survivor. Suddenly just being with another human being, the one thing we all assume we would miss if it were taken away, is the alien concept. Ruth's appearance is the shove that the rather lumbering story needs to lurch towards its conclusion which, to quote Nataliya's rather excellent review, is where lies the book's “soul-crushing impact”.

I Am Legend is undeniably flawed. And not even a flawed masterpiece, but just downright flawed. The characters are few in number and yet still come across as wooden. Neville, our only companion for half the book, isn't particularly good company. The first half is too slow, the second half could be fleshed out. But a book isn't just a bunch of clever words strung together in the right order. A book is a chalice for winged ideas. And the idea here soars. ( )

I'd been meaning to read I Am Legend for a while before finally getting around to it. In the meantime I'd seen Francis Lawrence's film adaptation. I knew changes had been made to the story for the film, but I naively thought they were going to be simple plot changes: a character dies who had survived or vice versa, someone is introduced sooner, maybe even something bigger like Will Smith finding a cure where the novel's Neville had failed or again vice versa. I was wholly unprepared for the humdinger of a change: the very nature and meaning of the story to be flipped, turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how I became the Prince of– no, wait, that's a different Will Smith thing. Let me start again.

The essence of the story is that a curious affliction has struck humanity; perhaps just the west coast of the US, maybe the whole of the US, or maybe even the whole world. This affliction turns people into vampires, complete with an aversion to ultraviolet light and a weakness to having dirty great stakes thrust through their thorax. Robert Neville lives alone in Los Angeles researching the disease to which he is immune, hoping to find a cure, and killing the afflicted in his spare time.

His humdrum existence (told, to be honest, via rather humdrum prose) is shaken when he meets Ruth, a second survivor. Suddenly just being with another human being, the one thing we all assume we would miss if it were taken away, is the alien concept. Ruth's appearance is the shove that the rather lumbering story needs to lurch towards its conclusion which, to quote Nataliya's rather excellent review, is where lies the book's “soul-crushing impact”.

I Am Legend is undeniably flawed. And not even a flawed masterpiece, but just downright flawed. The characters are few in number and yet still come across as wooden. Neville, our only companion for half the book, isn't particularly good company. The first half is too slow, the second half could be fleshed out. But a book isn't just a bunch of clever words strung together in the right order. A book is a chalice for winged ideas. And the idea here soars. ( )

1286 ( )