I Am Legend

Richard Matheson

Sep 2019 · RosettaBooks

About this ebook

Winner of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award for best vampire novel of the century: the genre-defining classic of horror sci-fi that inspired three films.

The population of the entire world has been obliterated by a pandemic of vampire bacteria. Yet somehow, Robert Neville survived. He must now struggle to make sense of what happened and learn to protect himself against the vampires who hunt him nightly.

As months of scavenging and hiding turn to years marked by depression and alcoholism, Robert spends his days hunting his tormentors and researching the cause of their affliction. But the more he discovers about the vampires around him, the more he sees the unsettling truth of who is—and who is not—a monster.

Richard Matheson's I Am Legend has been a major influence on horror literature. In 2012, it was named the best vampire novel of the century by the Horror Writers Association and the Bram Stoker Estate. The novel was adapted to film in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth, in 1971 as Omega Man, and in 2007 as I am Legend, starring Will Smith.

Ratings and reviews

This book is an absolute sci-fi classic and in many ways very ahead of its time, which explains but doesn't justify the center-stage misogyny that I found creepier than the story's monsters and that made it difficult to root for the main character.

What you see at the end of the world are only the things which you can never truly comprehend. After all, how did your perspective of life prepare you for something in opposition to all that you knew? If all you have known of this story is the movie, then I implore you to read the book. This story is very different than the film adaptation, and I may be so bold as to assert, far superior in every way.

Although I'm sad to say I finished the book withing 6 hours, I am incredibly happy I read it. I wish the movie had actually followed the novel more but both give us great stories.

About the author

Richard Matheson (1926-2013) was a prolific speculative fiction author and screenwriter who wrote novels, short stories, movie screenplays, and scripts for television. He is perhaps best known for I Am Legend, a novel that was translated to the silver screen twice-once starring Charlton Heston, and once starring Will Smith. His screenplay The Incredible Shrinking Man, based on a prior novel, won the Hugo Award in 1958. Several other novels of Matheson's have been adapted to film, including What Dreams May Come, A Stir of Echoes, Duel, and Hell House. The movie version of Duel, based on a Matheson short story of the same name, was directed by Steven Spielberg. He is also known for writing dozens of episodes for The Twilight Zone, including the iconic "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and several popular Star Trek episodes, including "The Enemy Within."

In addition to the Hugo Award, Richard Matheson was the recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (1984) and an Edgar Award for a teleplay written for The Night Stalker. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010.