Name: Patrick Book's review of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Item: I Am Legend
Rating: 4
Author: Patrick Book

Richard Matheson

An acclaimed SF novel about vampires. 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?

I Am Legend

A lone human survivor in a world that is overrun by vampires, Robert Neville leads a desperate life in which he must barricade himself in his home every night and hunt down the starving undead by day

Alice

How quickly one accepts the incredible if only one sees it enough!

There was no sound but that of his shoes and the now senseless singing of birds. Once I thought they sang because everything was right with the world, Robert Neville thought I know now I was wrong. They sing because they're feebleminded.

And, before science had caught up with the legend, the legend had swallowed science and everything.

Theodore Kaplan

Patrick Book

Having seen all the adaptations, I didn’t realize how horny the original story was.

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?

Joe Ross

I am a lover of zombie/horror fiction. This book is execeptional in genre because of the incredibly paced and detailed characterization of the main character. The "science" behind the epidemic is well-addressed as well.

Erik Wallace

I picked this up based on the recommendation of a friend. With no expectations and having not seen the movie I was pleasantly surprised by the story. I would give I Am Legend 4 or 5 starts on it's own, what I did not realize is how short the story was and that the rest of the book was short stories. I didn't even realize that I had finished reading I Am Legend until I was a few pages into the first short story. The other stories aren't without merit, some are pretty good and have similar themes, but I enjoyed Legend considerably more.

Judy Hutchins 

This book is excellent, but the writer is speaking to you quite directly and the vioce can be jarring. 

I love the story, better than the movie. 
There is little flowery language, a stark representation of the horrors the character lives through. 
Worth a read.

Sade A

I'm just going to start with saying The Will Smith movie doesn't properly capture the character "Robert Neville" 
That being said this book is definitely AMAZING!! You can practically feel Robert's despair, the lack of hope.. You're rooting for him and at the same time so afraid for him..When he ends with the quote "I Am Legend" even though the end is staring him in the face, I can't help but be happy for him.

JM Benedetto

One of the best books I ever read. It is really intense. I'm a big fan of vampires and this one is a masterpiece.

My favourite SciFi book. RIP Mister Matheson.

Kelsey Lynn

When the Will Smith I Am Legend movie came out, I liked it a lot, but my mother, an avid horror fan, hated it, said it was nothing like the book and was super dissapointed in it. I took it with a grain of salt. Cause, moms. 
 
When I started dating my SO he had a similar thing to my mom, except he didn't hate the movie, just acknowledged it as a different entity, but he did know ME and my pentient for dark and hopeless stories, and kept telling me to read it. So finally I took my mother's old 1954 hardback, and it sat on the shelf. I then experienced my biggest book turned movie disappointment, Annihilation, a literal garbage heap of a translation of an amazing book, and I sympathized with my mom, so 12 years after I Am Legend the Will Smith edition came out I finally read it. I read it in one sitting (it's pretty small) and man am I mad I didn't read it sooner. 
 
 This is a book after my own heart, set in a post apocalyptic world where a sole human survives and vampires walk the street. Robert Neville is a broken human that is just trying to live. The book plops you down, with very little backstory, in the thick of things. I saw another review saying they disliked this, but I love when stories do this, I want the now, I don't need large exposistions explaining the why, I can fill in the blanks with extrapolation need be. I just need enough to understand the character and his motives. I felt I got this. 

 Robert Neville lives his day in his protected house, going on runs and killing sleeping vampires when he can, and spends his nights listening to the vampires outside calling for him. He struggles with isolation, sexual frustration, madness even, alcoholism and more. It's a very human story. He finally starts trying to learn the why of the vampires, and this is where the author very creatively designs a vampire bacteria and an explantion for all the superstitions that revolve around vampires. He does this very well unlike other attempts (I'm looking at you The Strain). With just enough science to make it believable and not boring. 

 Unlike the hollywood version, and Hollywood's obsession with humans always being the strongest and smartest and always able to somehow overcome. This is a book about a hopeless man in a hopeless situation, trying to cope and come to terms with the situation. 
 
 The last 1/4 of the book is just pure perfection to me. My SO wasn't kiddig when he said I needed to read this, he knows the kinds of horror I like, and the kind of endings, and he was right. This is not a happy book, this is a dark book. I also fully believe this is a beautiful study of humans in hopeless situations. 

 If you like action, or ra ra humans always over come, or need everything to have a reason or be explained, this is not the book for you. But if you are open to it, I highly recommend this book. Well worth the 151 pages my edition was.

Kayleigh hughes

I'll add a proper review later but for now all I'm going to say is that if you're considering reading this DO NOT see that abomination of a movie with Will Smith. And if you have seen that movie and are avoiding the book because of it, then please give the book a chance!!

Sian Wadey

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

I picked this up for about three pound in HMV and was absolutely riveted. The story is dark, depressing, but despite reading it four years ago, I can still picture what I imagined when reading the book. It was an interesting look into the future and writing this has actually made me want to read it again.

Seán Mous

Hated the main character from the beginning but this book has left me staring at the wall 

Casey W. 

I just didn't care about Robert Neville. He's in a terrible situation, but I just didn't care about him at all. I found his experiments interesting, but that's about it.

Shafel McDowall

**Trigger warning for sexism and racism**

Amy Troschinetz

I Am Legend has what I consider the best chapter out of any book I've ever read. Depressing and thought provoking at once.

An acclaimed SF novel about vampires. 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? The SF classic that inspired the blockbuster vampire movie starring Will Smith

Alexia

Katie

This book follows Robert Neville, who is the last man on Earth (or at least as much of Earth as he can reach) in the midst of a post-apocalyptic wasteland where vampires have taken over.

It was a lot more introspective than I thought it would be. I thought this would be an action-packed survivalist story. Instead, it mostly deals with Neville's trauma and how he deals with losing his entire family and being constantly pursued by vampires. He is not a particularly likable character, but I also don't think he's meant to be. The way he thinks about women is super gross, and that really turned me off from him as a character that I'm maybe meant to root for?

The story jumps back and forth from before the apocalypse, and how it came about, following Robert Neville and his family as they try to avoid catching the sickness that became the vampire plague, and then it jumps forward to him trying to find a cure for this disease. I liked this story structure and slowly putting the pieces together.

Overall, I wanted to love this a lot more than I did, which seems to be the standard refrain for pretty much every older book/classic that I read. Maybe I just need to give up the ghost :(

Jade Flynn

"Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man."

I watched the film a little under a year ago and I just knew I had to get my hands on the book. Now having read the book, I wish the film would of followed the original storyline just a little bit more closely (especially the ending) than it did. Nevertheless, I liked the film and I ended up loving the book. This book has 100% earned its place in my favourite books of all time.

Jeremy Anderberg

Enjoyable, early take on the vampire genre. Way different from the movie, in a good way.

Анастасия Розова

You saw the movie "I Am Legend"? Well, then, forget the movie, cause the book has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Not that I expected them to be exactly the same, but the resemblance was so little I can't even pinpoint it. 
But! Despite all that, I quite enjoyed the book. Wasn't a fan of the writing style, but the story itself was interesting and gripping. Plus, the book is quite short, so reading it quickly wasn't a problem.
It was a nice perspective on an evolving society, on change. And I liked that aspect the most.

Maytal

Um that was okay but him constantly talking about how horny he is and fighting the urge to rape corpses or vampires was a bit weird.

Julia

Danica Holdaway

Very short and cool, but I really wish he would have written more about the scientific part of Neville's studies. Also, I expected it to be more like zombies from the movie instead of vampires, but it's still good.

Anastaciya

For some weird reason I really don't like Robert Neville 🙈 but the story itself is great. The best ones are short and to the point.

A lone human survivor in a world that is overrun by vampires, Robert Neville follows a desperate life in which he must barricade himself in his home every night and hunt down the starving undead by day. Reprint.

Zach Spencer

This book was much more than a simple horror novel or book about vampires. An excellent read that kept me interested the whole time!!

Theodore Kaplan &
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

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