Finished I Am Legend
3.31.2008 at 05:50:15 AM
Over the weekend I finished I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Fantastic book. It's been a while since I dug into a "classic" of any kind and not only appreciated its importance to literary history but also enjoyed the heck out of it. I Am Legend is one of those books.
I'd recommend it to almost anybody. The premise, for those who somehow missed all the I Am Legend movie trailers last year, is that Robert Neville is the last man on Earth. To be precise, he's the last human man. Everybody else has turned into vampires. These aren't your glamorous Anne Rice vamps, nor the creepy but sophisticated Count Dracula types. They are more like a cross between vampires and your typical zombies. They walk the night searching for food with no particular aim or purpose other than to find fresh blood. Neville is the last person with any pure human blood in him because he is somehow immune to whatever affected the rest of his race.
I Am Legend tells of Neville's struggle to survive and also to find out what caused the end of humanity. Perhaps he can even cure some of the vampires. Or maybe there are other survivors like him that he can find. Despite that this book was written decades ago, the story is still unlike anything else I've experienced in any medium. It's definitely worth a read, but I would not recommend you start it when dealing with any kind of depression; it will only make you feel worse. The chapters that are flashbacks of Neville's family are particularly heart-breaking and probably the most touching chapters you'll read in a vampire/zombie/apocalypse book.
Another book down. Next on the list is to read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I'm reading the Chronicles of Narnia books in chronological order, not the order he wrote them, so I only have three books remaining.
I'd recommend it to almost anybody. The premise, for those who somehow missed all the I Am Legend movie trailers last year, is that Robert Neville is the last man on Earth. To be precise, he's the last human man. Everybody else has turned into vampires. These aren't your glamorous Anne Rice vamps, nor the creepy but sophisticated Count Dracula types. They are more like a cross between vampires and your typical zombies. They walk the night searching for food with no particular aim or purpose other than to find fresh blood. Neville is the last person with any pure human blood in him because he is somehow immune to whatever affected the rest of his race.
I Am Legend tells of Neville's struggle to survive and also to find out what caused the end of humanity. Perhaps he can even cure some of the vampires. Or maybe there are other survivors like him that he can find. Despite that this book was written decades ago, the story is still unlike anything else I've experienced in any medium. It's definitely worth a read, but I would not recommend you start it when dealing with any kind of depression; it will only make you feel worse. The chapters that are flashbacks of Neville's family are particularly heart-breaking and probably the most touching chapters you'll read in a vampire/zombie/apocalypse book.
Another book down. Next on the list is to read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I'm reading the Chronicles of Narnia books in chronological order, not the order he wrote them, so I only have three books remaining.