|
|
I Am Legend |
|
|
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Average Customer Rating:  
|
| |
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
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
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
|
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.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Vampire Story (and Sci-fi Horror hybrid)!
Comment: Notwithstanding comparisons with the movie, this is a very creative and classic horror/sci-fi novella. The plot is essentially that a virus has been unleashed on the earth that has turned everyone in the world into vampires. One man has the anecdote and was able to remain untouched by the virus; however he has as yet been unsuccessful in saving others from the virus. Thus, by day the main character hunts the vampires and conducts his experiments against them. And by night, the vampires attempt to break into his "fortress" and destroy him. The vampires seem to loath the fact that someone exists who is not like them and has seemingly remained untouched by the virus.
This is essentially the premise and of course, something has got to give....
The story "I am Legend" is actually closer to a short story than a novel -less than 200 pages. The particular issue I read included several other Matheson short stories, which I did not get all the way through. I struggled through a couple but felt they sub-par especially by comparison to "Legend."
I give it 4 out of 5 stars, and definitely recommend it. I probably still consider Dracula the essential vampire classic, and also recommend "the penguin book of vampire stories;" but "Legend" is a very good and is probably one of the greatest examples of horror and sci-fi crossover out there. Again, it is a rather quick read. Another reason I recommend it if you have seen the movie is to learn why it is called "I am Legend," which is not entirely evident in the Will Smith version, in my opinion.
I also recommended the book to a friend who thought it was one of the best things he has read, and considers it a lot better than the movie versions.
(Note - In addition to Will Smith's "I am Legend" the book has also been made into 2 other movie variations - "The last man on earth" starring Vincent Price, and "The Omega Man." Starring Charleton Heston. "The Omega Man" is a nice interpretation of the book and one of my favorite sci-fi movies, though clearly deviates from the book.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: A "legend"ary story
Comment: I just finished this story --> after seeing the latest film adaptation.(The Fresh Prince version of the story is similar in name only.) The novel clearly is the inspiration for many of our modern day scifi/horror stories. Standing alone, I Am Legend is a well written novel exposing the innermost human condition, reminding me of Joseph Conrad. It also reminded me of Poe -- the human mind and soul pushed to the limits of sanity. I Am Legend is a winner!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The classic tale of the last man on earth
Comment: I Am Legend - In this most popular collection of shorts, the novella 'I Am Legend' has turned out to be a timeless piece of horror. Originally written in 1954, it takes place in the future of 1976. Robert Neville finds himself alone as a human in a sea of vampiristic creatures who once were human beings. After losing his wife and daughter to the "sickness", he turns his house into a fortress and spends his time drinking heavily and studying blood and bacterium. He discovers the "vampires" are actually victims of a bacterium, and begins to frequently experiment on cures and repellents as he hunts out the living dead during the day. Some are truly dead, but others, though only coming out at night, still breathe in their hidden cubbies. Neville kills them all; after all, they're ALL the enemy, gathering on his lawn night after night, wanting in. When Neville finally does meet a woman (Ruth) in daylight, he discovers he has become too much of a loner, leaving him very suspicious of Ruth. After she leaves, following an 'altercation' I won't explain, she gives him a warning. But is it too late for Neville to hear her message? In the end, Robert truly is a legend.
'I Am Legend' is a classic novella of terror, isolation, and the human condition. You can't help but think of a herd animal segregated from it's herd, and how much anxiety and behavioral changes that animal would make. It's been used for three movies; 1964's 'The Last Man On Earth', 1971's 'The Omega Man' (starring Charlton Heston), and 2007's 'I Am Legend' (starring Will Smith). The book, however, is a collection of shorts that are all good. Here's a quick summary of the other stories in the book:
· Buried Talents - An odd man wins a carnival game.
· The Near Departed - Very short story of funeral arrangements
· Prey - A strange little doll comes to life
· Witch War - Seven pretty little girls win a military battle
· Dance Of The Dead - An innocent girl gets corrupted by wild friends who take her to a bar where the "Loopy's" dance
· Dress Of White Silk - Strange but flat tale of a young girl and her dead mother's white silk dress.
· Mad House - An angry man with a volcanic temper passes along his rage into the very fiber of his house
· The Funeral - A Vampire funeral starts a fad
· From Shadowed Places - An ancient African ritual must be performed to save a man's life
· Person To Person - A man receives phone calls inside his head, but who are they coming from?
The novella 'I Am Legend' is a must-read horror classic. The other stories included in the book were written between 1952 through 1987. Matheson was an artist of horror and science fiction writing, a master at his craft. If this is the first Matheson book you pick up, you'll be hooked and want to try out his novel length books, all of which are timeless regardless of the era he wrote them in. Definitely worth a purchase. Enjoy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Where Have You Gone, Charleton Heston?
Comment: It's beyond me to understand how horror fans can go on and on about their favorite horror novels as if they were masterpieces written by Pynchon or Nabokov. The bottomline about "I Am Legend" is simple: it's about loneliness and loss in a post-apocalypse world overrun by vampires. If that doesn't cause you to dissolve with laughter, then "I Am Legend" might be for you. It's well-written, holds the reader's interest, and has been the basis for three movies. It will appeal to most teenage boys (or to grown up men who remember how the world feels to teenage boys). However, it doesn't deserve five stars because it doesn't have enough cool details about the end of humanity.
I didn't see "The Omega Man" when it came out in the early 1970s. However, one of the kids at my junior high school got to see it and he described every detail of the story to me. I was captivated. Now I'm almost 50. Now Charleton Heston is dead. I am legend.
Customer Rating:
Summary: ... worth it.
Comment: I read the book because I saw the movie (as surely many others did). I have to say that I actually liked the movie more, but they are so different that it's hardly worth comparing them.
The whole story is about what it would be like to be, basically, the last man alive. Although the conclusions it reaches are not entirely happy, the ending left me with a lot to think about in a way that the movie did not. It felt like it was political in some sense, but I'm not sure exactly what to think of it.
Although the story is older (1950s? I think '54...) it is written in a very modern style -- and it's horror that's neither gothic nor "splatter." I'd recommend it if only because it's not what you're expecting, and it does not end how you expect it to end.
The best thing about this book, however, is that it is followed by a collection of short stories... actually, about half of the book is short stories. Some of the stories were better than the novel, in my opinion, although not all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
