2007 Reading List - I Am Legend
Book Forty-two
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Boyfriend really wants to see this movie - which is a little surprising, because our tastes in film are rather divergent - so I thought I'd re-read the book just to have it fresh in my mind when we went to the theater.
Damn, I forgot how good this book is.
It's a swift read - I got it finished in a working day - but there is no wasted space. Matheson creates a tension that carries you through the book and never lets up. Brilliant work.
The story is pretty simple - in The Future (1972, in this case, but the book was published in '54, so let's be fair) a great plague sweeps over the world. It cripples and it kills. But that isn't the end of it - the dead come back. They are pale, bloodthirsty things, re-animated people who are repelled by garlic, wounded by sunlight and looking for the sweet nectar of living blood. The plague wraps itself around the world and spares no one.
Almost no one.
Robert Neville watched his family die. He watched his friends die. His city, his country, his species. Alone among men, he has survived the vampire plague, and has no idea why. All he can do is survive.
And that's it. That's the story. It's simple, but the character is compelling and the writing is excellent. Neville does exactly what he should do in this situation - he is methodical, logical and ruthless. By day he hunts down sleeping vampires and kills them. At night he locks himself in his house and lets them rage. He dedicates himself to figuring out what caused the vampires and how they might be killed, using vampire after vampire to test his theories. He does this, alone, for nearly a decade.
But a lot can happen in ten years....
The book is outstanding, and I really hope the movie does it justice. I know it's Will Smith, and there are certain expectations for Will Smith movies, but still....
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Boyfriend really wants to see this movie - which is a little surprising, because our tastes in film are rather divergent - so I thought I'd re-read the book just to have it fresh in my mind when we went to the theater.
Damn, I forgot how good this book is.
It's a swift read - I got it finished in a working day - but there is no wasted space. Matheson creates a tension that carries you through the book and never lets up. Brilliant work.
The story is pretty simple - in The Future (1972, in this case, but the book was published in '54, so let's be fair) a great plague sweeps over the world. It cripples and it kills. But that isn't the end of it - the dead come back. They are pale, bloodthirsty things, re-animated people who are repelled by garlic, wounded by sunlight and looking for the sweet nectar of living blood. The plague wraps itself around the world and spares no one.
Almost no one.
Robert Neville watched his family die. He watched his friends die. His city, his country, his species. Alone among men, he has survived the vampire plague, and has no idea why. All he can do is survive.
And that's it. That's the story. It's simple, but the character is compelling and the writing is excellent. Neville does exactly what he should do in this situation - he is methodical, logical and ruthless. By day he hunts down sleeping vampires and kills them. At night he locks himself in his house and lets them rage. He dedicates himself to figuring out what caused the vampires and how they might be killed, using vampire after vampire to test his theories. He does this, alone, for nearly a decade.
But a lot can happen in ten years....
The book is outstanding, and I really hope the movie does it justice. I know it's Will Smith, and there are certain expectations for Will Smith movies, but still....