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The Bargain Nexus - I Am Legend
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $7.25
Your Save: $ 7.70 ( 52% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780765318749
ISBN: 0765318741
Label: Tor Books
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2007-10-30
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: 2007-10-30
Studio: Tor Books
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: What does it mean to be normal?
Comment: This is one of those rare cases where I saw a movie before I read the book it was based on. I enjoyed the film with Will Smith, but it was totally different than the book. To me, the film was more about the triumph of the human spirit; one man fighting for humanity. The book is more of a philosophical examination of what it means to be normal - part of the majority. Matheson chose vampirism to be his plague, but really, he could have chosen anything. The question becomes, is a person still normal when the rest of the world is different, is it right to keep fighting against change?
Robert Neville is perhaps the last man on earth. He has barricaded himself in his house, and each night it is surrounded by vampires waiting for their prey to emerge. He wrestles with not only survival, but his very sanity. He needs a purpose to keep going, and finds it in a search for answers. Vampires were legends - but perhaps they were real all along. What causes vampirism? Is it just a bacteria? If so, how does he explain their fear of religious artifacts? The novel is written almost like a journal of Neville - only in third person. There is a lot of descriptions of what he does day to day, what he is thinking (or trying not to think about). Gradually, pieces of the past are put together for the reader to see how he came to be alone for 3 years. In the novel, there are 2 types of vampires - those infected but still alive, and the undead. The difference between them is crucial to the resolution of the story - though not necessarily in the way a reader may expect (or the way the movie ended). In the movie, the vampires are ravening, seemingly mindless creatures that the audience can easily side with Neville against. In the novel, they are intelligent and see Neville as a threat to their existence. Who has the right to survive?
I think what made the novel most worth reading was finding out just what the title meant. The movie never explains it - the book makes it pivotal. Overall, the book is very slow (much like the movie) but makes a reader think more about what is happening than simply watching one man try to survive. And I highly recommend it - if only to know the ending that really needed to occur.
Given that I Am Legend is a short novel, this edition is very nice for the inclusion of several other Matheson short stories. Even though Will Smith doesn't look like Neville as described in the book, I'm still happy to see him on the cover!
Customer Rating:
Summary: YUCK.....
Comment: Book is much better than the movie, but the ending sucks. The solitude of the main character was interesting, especially for the decade this was written. But it falls short on a lot of explaination. There were a lot of opportunities to really explore the psychological aspects of an isolated man left dangling.
The short stories (most of which were featured on the twilight zone) inserted at the back of the book by the publishing company were a lot more enjoyable than the main story. Save yourself a headache, rent the movie, or wait for it on cable.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not quite what it should be
Comment: I read this because some science fiction critic said it was "better than Robinson Crusoe."
Not quite.
"I am Legend" is a pretty compelling metaphor for isolation (and isolationism), but the author lets a lot of that tension run to waste by devoting the middle portion of the story to a bogus Freudian/science-fictional explanation of where the vampires came from, why crosses repel them, blah blah blah...
I suppose it's an important contribution to the evolving vampire mythos (though I'm not sure that's a good thing if "Twilight" is what we get from it), but it could have been something even better: a truly atmospheric story throughout. That, to me, would have been even more valuable.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic benchmark
Comment: The 'I am Legend' compilation is a fabulous book and must be taken on it's own merits and not on one's enjoyment of the 3 subsequent movies (good or bad). The fact that it was written in 1954 can only make the reader more impressed with Matheson's scientific references and the way in which he weaves mythology with the "modern". Although there are other definite classics included, I felt less of an affinity with some of the other short stories until I again reminded myself of the vintage of these tales. A short story like 'Prey'(1969) falls foul of numerous 'Chucky' type 80's horror flicks, the memories of which now permeate ones imagery during the reading of such a story and needless to say, ruins it.
But to harp on the negative is futile when the 170 pages of 'I am Legend' are magnificent. The ending, the very final line, outshines anything that movies have done with this work. I would however, recommend a viewing of the three movies, 'The last man on Earth', 'Omega Man' and 'I am Legend' as something of interest after reading this book. That's not to say there's not an absolute lemon in there, but it is interesting to see the treatment of the material from the 1954 text through to 2007.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The movie was better. . .
Comment: Stephen King (whom I think is overrated but whose opinion nevertheless carries some weight) says, "I think the author who influenced me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson. Books like "I Am Legend" were an inspiration to me." According to Dean Koontz (whom I love, even though some of his recent works have descended into schmaltzy moralizing), "I Am Legend" is the "most clever and riveting vampire novel since Dracula." While it certainly is better than anything that hack Stephenie Meyer could ever come out with, I was nevertheless left feeling . . . let down. Anticlimatic. Sort of.
One of the things that morbidly draws us to post-apocalyptic literature is, I think, not only that terrifying concept that modern civilization can collapse into chaos, but also that same haunted quality that draws people to ponder crumbling cities among the riotously overgrown jungle, or the stark beauty seen in the remains of ancient Rome under the blue sky. There is a poem by Wallace Stevens called "Sunday Morning," in which he reflects on the notion that "Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her / Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams / And our desires." One of my English professors used it to discuss "The Iliad," but I think this idea of terrible splendor is an old perception. It's long been a part of the aesthetic of Gothic literature going back to Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" (1764); you also see it, for example, in Poe's depiction of the ill-fated House of Usher and his evocation of "the dim and decaying city on the Rhine" in the oppressively atmospheric "Ligeia." I remember reading somewhere that Europe's eighteenth-century aristocracy was fond of including fake ruins in their estate gardens to give them precisely that ambiance. Part of the attraction of the recent "I Am Legend" film with Will Smith, as well as Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," was precisely their convincing on-screen portrayals of New York City and London emptied of human habitation and bearing the scars of catastrophe and corrosion.
I hate to say it, but this really is one of those rare cases where the movie is better than the book. (I mean the Will Smith movie - I haven't seen either of its two predecessors.) First of all, Matheson's use of vampires *could* have worked out, if only he hadn't included all those hokey clichés like the fear of crosses and death by wooden stake. Yes, I know that he attempted to legitimize the stuff by having protagonist Robert Neville uncover scientific and psychological explanations for it and reminding us that the "strength of the vampire is that no one will believe in him." But still, none of it could quite convince me to sufficiently suspend my disbelief, especially since the pseudo-Freudian psychology seemed hopelessly outdated (the book was first published in 1954). Apparently, vampires' aversion to crosses is the result of their subconscious. But I will say this: the scenes where Neville lays in bed at night in his barricaded house while the vampires scream and bang around outside were very well done.
But despite moments like that, "I Am Legend" still didn't really give me that sense of atmosphere, an element that I think is especially vital in post-apocalyptic literature. It's not enough to keep the reading running along with fast-paced action or perched on the edge of their chair in moments of suspense. There are plenty of cheap crime thrillers to do just that. Again, what you need is that vision of modern society as a ruin. In other words, I think I mean to say that the prose felt flat. I think that was it. I would speculate that a lot of the book's appeal came from the novelty of its plot and the provocative twist at the end. The last human on earth becomes a "legend" to the previously fabled beings who have now taken over. It's a pretty neat concept, and I'm not surprised that things really picked up as the story wound to a close and Neville began to identify with the undead vampire whom the living ones had set out to ruthlessly exterminate.
The novel then ends on a very poignant note that almost makes up for a rather ho-hum story. So did I like "I Am Legend"? Not really, but it is nevertheless an intriguing book and obviously there other readers will strongly disagree with my assessments of it. You have to read it yourself.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Robert Neville may well be the last living man on Earth . . . but he is not alone.
An incurable plague has mutated every other man, woman, and child into bloodthirsty, nocturnal creatures who are determined to destroy him. By day, he is a hunter, stalking the infected monstrosities through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.... Richard Matheson’s classic novel has now been transformed by Warner Bros. into a major motion picture starring Academy Award nominee Will Smith. Directed by Francis Lawrence (“Constantine”), the film opens nationwide in December 2007.
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