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

by Richard Matheson

[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).