Vampires...the end of everything

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	• I Am Legend Richard Matheson Tom Doherty Assoc Llc, 1995 - 312 pages average customer review:based on 508 reviews
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highly recommended

Vampires...the end of everything

Here is the story of Mr. Robert Neville, the sole witness and only survivor of the end of the world. One good day, people started to rise from the grave and turn into vampires. Our main character isolates himself in his house with everything he needs to survive.

By night he stays in, tormented by the screams and memories of his past life, by day he hunts the devils. Kill them in their sleep.

Richard Matheson left his mark in the vampire genre with "I Am Legend", its one of the best vampires novels ever.

It leaves you with a hollow feeling in the chest (the same feeling I got when I saw almost 25 years ago the original Planet of the Apes).

The way he describes the solitude of Robert Neville, his desperation it's just incredible. The fact that a new species (vampires) had organized and now rules the earth it's just the final touch of desperation to the trama. Robert Neville is the last man on earth, the outcast, the intruder. He is the new and last monster to be destroyed.

I Am Legend it's a must in your book collection.

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A defining vampire novel

I just finished reading this book and was completely blown away by Matheson's gripping story of a man living in a post-apocalyptic vampire-infested world. I'm almost afraid to see the movie now, because I generally feel that the book is better than the movie. This is probably one of the best novels I've ever read.

As an aside, a few of his short stories were published with this novel and I found one of them, "Prey," to be the basis for the 1975 television horror movie, "Trilogy of Terror" which gave me nightmares for a month.

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I am in Awe of This Story!

I originally bought this book well in advance of the movie version (staring Will Smith) release, but never got around to reading it (it got buried in my ever growing mountain of books to read). Needless to say, I saw the movie and heard the opinion of many, many, many people with regards to its flaws (mainly dealing with deviation from the source material). I admit I enjoyed the movie and I've also seen the 1971 version with Charleton Heston, so I have always been rather puzzled about the avid dislike some people seem to hold for the movie versions of this book. Having finally sat down yesterday and read through it, I can now honestly say I see why. I'm not about to jump on the bandwagon, but I can see why. For me, the movie version(s) are radically different stories, they diverge from the book on many points and frankly, I don't consider them the same story. The movie versions are built on the same bones...but they do NOT tell the same story and so (speaking for myself here), I judge each on its own merits (or lack thereof).

That said...I absolutely LOVED this story (and yes, I say story, not novel). I Am Legend comes housed in a book that should be titles I Am Legend and Other Stores by Richard Matheson. I Am Legend takes up only the first 170 of the 317 pages in this "novel," the rest consists of nine short stories of varying genre and which vary greatly in how enjoyable I found them. I was surprised to note I recognize several of them as also having been made into movies in their own right (Masters of Horror, Trilogy of Terror, Creep Show, Etc.)...if you read them you're likely to recognize them (if you are also a fan of these programs/movies).

Of the title story alone, I was quite thrilled to read it at long last and am rather angry with myself that I kept putting it off as it's one of the best in this genre I've read in a good, long time! I love that Robert Neville is a "real" person...he is something of an everyman, he could be anybody (though I do admit that I have trouble picturing him as anyone but Will Smith since I saw the movie recently, much less as a blond haired Californian). He's an average working man with an average life prior to the "plague" that wipes out nearly the entire human race as we know it. Matheson quite deftly weaves a believable premise of contagion based on chemical (or other) warfare in some vague reference to "conflict" and "war" that eerily mirrors recent conflicts around the globe (9/11 included).

Faced with utter loneliness (being, he believes, the last man on earth), nightly taunting by the vampires, and unquenched sexual drives, Neville skirts madness (and sometimes succumbs to it utterly), drinking and smoking too much while trying to live as normal a life as he can. As the book progresses, Neville begins putting his time to good use, going to the library and begins researching the how and why behind the vampire "infection," and he struggles through it (as any normal man or woman would)...he's not a genius, he holds no special degrees or knowledge...he must come to his understanding as we all might, with a lot of hard work, a few thrown books and a lot of frustration. Neville also takes time to ferret out the truth to his theories and unflinchingly applies the knowledge he acquires slowly learning more and more and becoming quite an accomplished vampire killer. It is fascinating to "watch" as the story progresses his struggles with core issues; humanity, loneliness, human nature, sexuality (or the absence of it), and more.

I love that the details are given slowly, that we learn the scientific (or other) basis for the vampire mythos, that we discover Neville's past in bits and pieces (flash-backs) and are just as haunted by the nightly taunting of the vampires as he is. There is a quiet desperation to Neville's story and one can come to fully understand the burden he bears and how he tries to deal with what has happened...and just when you think you understand...when you side with him and believe that any one of us might do the same things given this circumstances...Matheson turns the story on it's ear and quite successfully pulls the rug right out from under us, turning Neville from a rugged, survivor into something else altogether! What a wonderful ending, so much starker and real than either of the movie versions I've seen gave. I was utterly shocked when I read the last few paragraphs...and completely satisfied. I Am Legend is a classic for a reason, it's a great story AND it really leaves you thinking about the entire set of circumstances when it's all said and done. Wonderful, I give it 5 stars and two thumbs up!

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Dares to be different

Excellent story, even better ending. Definitely leaves you wanting more but in a good way. The author knew right where to leave things.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Robert Neville is the last living man on earth ... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville?s blood.

By day he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.

How long can one man survive like this?

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