I Am Legend (I Am Legend, #1) (S.F. Masterworks)

by Richard Matheson

An acclaimed SF novel about vampires becomes a stunning new movie starring Will Smith. The last man on earth is not alone ...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 hungry for Neville's blood. By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive like this?

• ISBN10: 0575081988
• ISBN13: 9780575081987
• Publish Date: 13 December 2007 (first published 23 April 1971)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 25 January 2010
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Gollancz
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 176
• Language: English

Reviews

[HekArtemis]

Interesting. The sexism was super annoying, and yes I know it's an old book, blah blah, misogyny is eternal. We all know that. Still annoying. I am glad to finally understand why it is titled I Am Legend, since the movie version didn't fit the title for me, it does it better in the book. Overall worth the read.

[adamfortuna]

When the movie came out, I couldn't help but hear people comparing it to the book. I hadn't realized the book was much more of a short story than a full novel. The movie touches on a number of even more emotional deep moments, including the inclusion of the dog. The book much more humanizes the vampires, as well as going deeper into the science side of things. By having a main character who also isn't a scientist, it helps show the passage of time more as he learns what he needs to learn. The endings are of course drastically different -- even from the alternate ending.

[adastra]

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 very impressive book for its time (1954).

[SilverThistle]

For anyone that hasn't seen the film or read the book........the book is nothing like the film.......and the film is nothing like the book.. Normally, when a film is based on a book I love the book so much more. But not this time. I have to say that I'm liking the film more this time.

The book is good, don't get me wrong. I was scared in parts. However, it's nothing like the film. If you're looking for similar, but better, read 'Salems Lot' by Stephen King.

The only thing the book and the film have in common is that they both involve a man who is probably one of the last few survivors after a virus strikes the population.

With both though, I'm left with lots of questions that aren't addressed and it's frustrating to be 'almost' at the point of knowing it all, but not quite having enough information. I read the book thinking that the unanswered questions from the film would be answered, but all it's done is given me more questions.

[Rinn]

Also posted on my blog, Rinn Reads.

I have to admit, I decided to read this because I enjoyed the film - but of course I didn't go into it expecting any real similarities. I can see why the film is so different; a large majority of the book involves Neville going around his day-to-day life just to stay alive - fixing up his house, collecting food. But there were several moments where the pace really picked up, and it wasn't until these moments that you really realised how threatening the vampires were.
Matheson's inclusion of Neville's lusting towards the vampires proved to show how similar Neville and the vampires really are - where Neville is lusting for their bodies, they are lusting for his blood. But that, along with his tendency to fall back on the drink, made Neville a much more rounded character, with some flaws.
I was quite surprised by the pacing of the book, as it's fairly slow, but I have the film to blame for those expectations I guess.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Wow, this was different to the movies claiming to be based on this book; what happened? No zombie apocalypse like I was expecting instead we have vampires. I went in expecting one thing and ended up enjoying something completely different.