Product Description

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?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1850 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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

About the Author
SALES POINTS * #2 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series -- a library of the finest science fiction ever written * Filmed twice (starring Vincent Price and Charlton Heston) with a third version, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, in pre-production * 'The most clever and riveting vampire novel since DRACULA' -- Dean R. Koontz * 'The author who influenced me most as a writer was Richard Matheson. Books like I AM LEGEND were an inspiration to me' -- Stephen King

Customer Reviews

The original "Blade"?
I know it sounds like a bunch of cliches but this book gripped me so much I couldn't put it down and read it in just a few hours. A sometimes bleak study of the human condition it is also engrossing, thought-provoking and moving. It is also one of the few "horror" novels out of hundreds I have read that have genuinely scared me.

Basically it is the story of Robert Neville, the lone survivor of a plague that sends its victims into a coma, followed eventually by death and vampirism. By day Neville hunts sleeping plague victims and vampires and disposes of them in the traditional manner. By night he locks himself away while hordes of vampires attack his well-defended house. Eventually he seeks scientific explanations for the causes of vampirism and tries to find a cure. In that respect I think the story must have been an influence on the Blade comics and movies (just don't expect hi-tech weapons, martial arts and cool shades!!).

As Neville becomes more resigned to his situation, and gradually gets used to the nightly attacks of vampires on his well-defended house, so does the reader. The vampires become almost incidental and the writing focusses more on Neville's thoughts and preoccupations. Until, that is, Neville loses track of time and gets caught outside, miles from home at nightfall. It is a testament to Matheson's writing that at this point the thought of being in Neville's position and having to run the gauntlet of vampires waiting for him outside his only safe haven is truly terrifying!

The pseudo-scientific explanations for the characteristics of vampirism seem a little silly, especially the "body glue", but these are really incidental to the story, as is the futuristic 1970's setting, and you shouldn't let these put you off.

I would recommend this book to anyone.

In the footsteps of the master
Bram Stoker took a similar 'scientific' approach to his vampire horror story. And he made a pretty good job of it, using the science and psychology theories that were fashionable at the time. Richard Matheson follows the master, setting his hero to hunt, not just for vampires, but for scientific answers to the problem of vampirism and, if possible, a cure. If you happen to know anything about biology, medicine, bacteriophages etc, there are parts of the book you will need to skip swiftly past in order to maintain your suspension of disbelief. But the science is not the main point of the story, so it's quite safe not to pay overly close attention to the more dodgy elements of Robert Neville's scientific discoveries about the vampires. Robert Neville is utterly alone in a world where creatures that look like humans torment him by night and he has to hunt them down by day. He dare not go far from his fortress home because he cannot be caught outside at night. As he finds and eliminates sleeping blood-suckers in his immediate neighbourhood, more pour in from surrounding areas. They skulk around his house. One of his old friends is out there too, calling for him to come out, reminding him of his old life. He stays indoors from dusk until dawn, drinking whiskey, growing his rage, dwelling on his losses, trying to understand what happened and why? He turns to scientific investigation as much to occupying his mind and avoid insanity as to find any real hope of solving the problem of vampirism. His anger, impotence and loneliness are pushed out of his mind by the pursuit of knowledge - answers to the how and the why. Fear and isolation can be forgotten while he's absorbed in his studies. But will he also forget how to be human and how to be humane?

Excellent story. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys horror stories and also to those fans of sci-fi who aren't too critical and demanding about the sci in their fi.

A dark brooding paranoid classic
It is hard to think or a darker book - Richard Neville is the last man alive the rest of the population turned into vampires by a mysterious bug. By day he scavanges the deserted city and seeks out sleeping vampires to kill, while at night he sits in his fortified house listening to the vampires howl for his blood.

But this isn't just a excuse for horror, it a novel about the nature of man which will make you think as well as scaring you.

Written in 1954 this is a timeless classic - I wonder if Matheson now regrets the then so futuristic 1970s setting - it is the only thing that dates the book. An influence on so many others, Steven King and George Romero for a start. This should be on any list of great novels of the 20th century.