Richard Matheson
Kindle Edition | Pages: 162 pages Rating: 4.07 | 87374 Users | 5495 Reviews
Describe Books In Favor Of I Am Legend
| Original Title: | I Am Legend ASIN B00514HDNW |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Robert Neville |
| Setting: | Los Angeles, California(United States) |
| Literary Awards: | Tähtivaeltaja Award (2008) |
Ilustration Toward Books I Am Legend
"I am legend". These words make me shudder. But if you have only seen that Will Smith movie that went 180 degrees on the book's message, the soul-crushing impact of these words will be lost on you. That makes me sad...
To quote Stephen King, "I think the author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson." This was enough of a recommendation for me to go and dig up this book. And it's great.(view spoiler)["Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.” (hide spoiler)]Robert Neville, as you may already know from the countless cinematic adaptations of the story, seems to be a sole survivor of a vampirism-like pandemic. (The old-fashioned burn-in-the-sunlight stake-through-the-heart vampirism, none of that newfangled emo sparkliness.) Neville stakes vampires by day, and researches the cause of the plague in his spare time. The long segments of the story are devoted to the relentless monotony of his scientific pursuit of the vampirism mystery - which he does figure out, by the way. And it's quite neat. We witness the years of deep depression, alcoholism, and the suffocating isolation, loneliness and despair. Then one day he meets Ruth who may be another survivor of the pandemic. And that's where any similarities to the movie stop, and the story becomes less of a lone-hero-tale and more of the soul-crushing-hopeless-revelation-tale.
(view spoiler)["And suddenly he thought, I'm the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man." (hide spoiler)]The story of the lone righteous hero, the brave vampire hunter has a sure guaranteed readers' appeal (I, for instance, adore Stephen King's Salem's Lot). Matheson, however, brilliantly decides to take the road less traveled and turns the legend on its head. He introduces an unexpected perspective that forces the protagonist and the reader look at things in a new - and shocking - light. After all, the line between a hero and a horror is very thin, and usually very subjectively drawn. This is not a traditional vampire story in any shape or form. There is no supernatural element - unless you think so of germs. Instead it involves evolution - of the hero and the monsters alike, and not in the ways that are comforting to the reader. The horror lies in its unsettling revelations about the human nature. It is also a story in which happy ending is impossible by default - which Hollywood, of course, promptly 'fixes'. At least Will Smith got a blockbuster out of the butchered story.
Given the number of the cinematic adaptations of this book, it continues to fascinate Hollywood. I'm just waiting for the day when they make one that actually captures the intended impact of Matheson's story.
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The writing is a bit dry, the science sections drag on a bit, and the protagonist is rather unlikable, but I forgive all this for the punch-in-the-gut impact the story had on me. 4 stars.Details Appertaining To Books I Am Legend
| Title | : | I Am Legend |
| Author | : | Richard Matheson |
| Book Format | : | Kindle Edition |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 162 pages |
| Published | : | May 14th 2011 by RosettaBooks (first published 1954) |
| Categories | : | Horror. Science Fiction. Fiction. Classics. Paranormal. Vampires. Apocalyptic. Post Apocalyptic. Fantasy |
Rating Appertaining To Books I Am Legend
Ratings: 4.07 From 87374 Users | 5495 ReviewsPiece Appertaining To Books I Am Legend
"I am legend". These words make me shudder. But if you have only seen that Will Smith movie that went 180 degrees on the book's message, the soul-crushing impact of these words will be lost on you.That makes me sad...To quote Stephen King, "I think the author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson." This was enough of a recommendation for me to go and dig up this book. And it's great. (view spoiler)["Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering theI Am Legend by Richard MathesonMy rating: 4 of 5 starsBlurb: Robert Neville is the last man left alive on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire. Neville spends his days scavenging for food and supplies, and hunting down the undead in their lairs in the ruins of civilisation. At night, he becomes the hunted and barricades himself in his home, waiting and praying for the dawn.I Am Legend was one of the first, and certainly the most
This is another one of those times when there are people who if they could would give this book far more than the allowed 5 while if I were rating it on "enjoyment alone" I'd be looking to give it negative stars. I realize this is one of the "classics" of science fiction (or science fantasy)and I don't care. I read it years ago and while I find the writing in places rates my recognition of it's quality...I don't care for the book.Like some of Matheson's other works there are some questions that
Richard Matheson may be the most underrated genre writer ever. When you look at a list of his books- I Am Legend, Somewhere In Time, Hell House, Duel: Terror Stories, What Dreams May Come- just to name a few, you realize how unique and diverse his talent was.This novel, I Am Legend, a perfect little bricolage of apocalyptic, dystopian, sci-fi, horror, vampire, zombie, is probably his best known work, although I'm partial to Somewhere in Time (Bid Time Return) being such a romantic
Yet again, I've been breaking the rules. This time, it wasn't on purpose! But I went into reading I Am Legend knowing the ending, knowing the twist. Years ago, you see, my husband had wanted to talk about the book, probably when the most recent adaptation to movie form had come out, and I am well known for not reading horror, so it wasn't an unreasonable assumption that I would never read this.So, wrong, in the long run, but it made reading this for the first time a very different experience
I Am Legend, Richard MathesonIt was influential in the development of the zombie-vampire genre and in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. Robert Neville appears to be the sole survivor of a pandemic that has killed most of the human population and turned the remainder into "vampires" that largely conform to their stereotypes in fiction and folklore: they are blood-sucking, pale-skinned, and nocturnal, though otherwise indistinguishable from normal humans.
I just finished reading this book. Completely different from the movie (The 2007 version), I wish they would have gone with this story instead. The reader spends the whole story (Which is really only 170 pages) following the last man on earth as he fights for his survival against vampires (and yes, they are vampires). He boards up his house, stocks up on canned goods, and researches a way to combat this disease. He is not a doctor or a scientist, just a regular man stuck in an irregular
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