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Richard Matheson

I Am Legend: No.2 (S.F. MASTERWORKS) Paperback – 21 Jan. 1999

by Richard Matheson (Author)

4.5 15,431 ratings

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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?

ISBN-10

1857988094
ISBN-13

978-1857988093
Publisher

Gollancz
Publication date

21 Jan. 1999
Language

English
Dimensions

13.1 x 1.3 x 19.8 cm
Print length

160 pages
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Product description

Amazon Review

It seems strange to find a 1954 vampire novel in Millennium's "SF Masterworks" classic reprints series. I Am Legend, though, was a trailblazing and later much imitated story that reinvented the vampire myth as SF. Without losing the horror, it presents vampirism as a disease whose secrets can be unlocked by scientific tools. The hero Robert Neville, perhaps the last uninfected man on Earth, finds himself in a paranoid nightmare. By night, the bloodthirsty undead of small-town America besiege his barricaded house: their repeated cry "Come out, Neville!" is a famous SF catchphrase. By day, when they hide in shadow and become comatose, Neville gets out his wooden stakes for an orgy of slaughter. He also discovers pseudoscientific explanations, some rather strained, for vampires' fear of light, vulnerability to stakes though not bullets, loathing of garlic, and so on. What gives the story its uneasy power is the gradual perspective shift which shows that by fighting monsters Neville is himself becoming monstrous--not a vampire but something to terrify vampires and haunt their dreams as a dreadful legend from the bad old days. I Am Legend was altered out of recognition when filmed as The Omega Man (1971), starring Charlton Heston. Avoid the movie; read the book. --David Langford

Book Description

A science fiction novel about vampires....

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gollancz (21 Jan. 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1857988094
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1857988093
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.1 x 1.3 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,047,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 653 in Zombies, Werewolves & Vampires
- 1,461 in Classic Horror
- 4,863 in Film & Television Tie-In

Customer reviews:
4.5 15,431 ratings

About the author

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Richard Matheson

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Richard Matheson was born in 1926. He began publishing SF with his short story 'Born of Man and Woman' in 1950. I Am Legend was published in 1954 and subsequently filmed as The Omega Man (in 1971), starring Charlton Heston, and I Am Legend (in 2007), starring Will Smith. Matheson wrote the script for the film The Incredible Shrinking Man, an adaptation of his second SF novel The Shrinking Man. The film won a Hugo award in 1958. He wrote many screenplays as well as episodes of The Twilight Zone. He continued to write short stories and novels, some of which formed the basis for film scripts, including Duel, directed by Steven Spielberg in 1971. A film of his novel What Dreams May Come was released in 1998, starring Robin Williams. Stephen King has cited Richard Matheson as a creative influence on his work.

Photo by JaSunni at PicasaWeb [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Andrew Sheerin

Quality

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 August 2023

Verified Purchase

Richard Matheson is an amazing author, this book was first published in 1954 and to this day in 2023 so 69 years later I must say it’s an absolute treat. I read this about 20 years ago and long before the film came out in 2007 and it’s a class act. It’s a cracking vampire post apocalyptic thrilling roller coaster and keeps you engaged throughout and for about 160 pages it’s soon over. It’s a must buy for new and old fantasy lovers!

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Antonio

The Longest Death Scene In Pulp History

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 March 2023

Verified Purchase

This is a very morbid story. I wouldn’t recommend reading it if you are feeling depressed. But it’s also well written with some excellent clips of prose that have been heavily highlighted by readers. However it’s full of sadness and tragedy, and it takes the protagonist about three drawn-out chapters to finally die even though he’s not a vampire. It was as though he died three or four times.
The story’s also convoluted in places and the author leaves some unexplained loose ends. The reason I didn’t award five stars is because the protagonist got sentimental about the vampires towards the end - why should he do that? Aren’t vampires supposed to be villains?
On the positive side Matheson is very adept at building up suspension. My favorite book of his is The Invisible Man. Another tragic book with a sad ending, but what a wonderful imaginative idea. There’s also a great deal of anger in I Am Legend which was a little grating at times. I know it’s a horror story but a bit of humor now and then, would have alleviated the morbid subject content.

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chris birrell

What horror read. Forget the movie(s). Read this!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 May 2023

Verified Purchase

Loved this book. Couldn’t put it down. I’m a zombie reader and watcher through and through but I was knocked out by the edgy vampire elements in this. And all the day and night and staying out too late scenes and battles were great too.

So interesting to read the original text vs the Omega Man Heston 70s movie and more recently 2000’s Will Smith-ified I Am Legend film.

Kinda makes me feel like there’s space for another true I Am Legend movie faithful to the Matheson book and 50s time period. Who’s up for filming. I’ll watch. And more vampires this time please. Just like the brilliant book original! Still can’t believe he published this book when he was only 28! Wow. Read it. You’ll be disappointed if you don’t….

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Heather @ Random Redheaded Ramblings

Classic read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2020

Verified Purchase

I’ve been sitting on this book since I bought it back in 2017, just never got around to reading it but the my favourite podcast discussed it on their Patreon episode and their discussion was enough to make me download.

Now first of all are these creatures of the nights vampires or zombies? I say vampires, I’ve heard zombies. As far as I know zombies usually do their thing all day long unlike vampires, so I am sticking with vampires.

Anyway I digress, this is an old book from 1954, how does it hold up now? Not too badly is the answer, Matheson inspired Stephen King and it shows. I’d seen the Will Smith film so wrongly presumed that the book would be the same.

The book centres around Robert Neville, happily drinking and smoking his days away all alone, a plague has swept America and he is stuck in his boarded up house in the suburbs where the plague ridden vampires come out at night and try to lure him out. He’s having none of it of course, he’s lost his family but for the moment is just happy drinking himself in to oblivion and listing to classical music.

It follows his day as he checks the house is still in one piece, checks on his garlic supply and goes looking for things to salvage. He is having the vampire equivalent of Groundhog Day.

He has a moment of revelation and decides he is going to learn about biology and virology and figure out what is causing the plague, he has nothing better to do so he goes looking for all the necessary equipment and some samples which involves getting a hold of some vamps.

Now it was at this point I did wonder if he really should have just given up, there are no other humans, the vampires outnumber him greatly, will figuring out what makes them tick be of any use? He is surviving and doing a not too bad job of it but will it bring him happiness, it certainly won’t bring his family back.

It is however a good book, its a quick read at 175 pages, its also an old book so there are occasional un-pc moments but all in all I think Matheson has done a good job bringing this dystopian world to life and bringing Neville’s torturous existence to the pages.

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I Am Legend: No.2 (S.F. MASTERWORKS) Paperback – 21 Jan. 1999

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