I Am Legend (the book)

When I'm getting ready for a long drive, usually I like to have a book set up on my iPod. Music is fun, but tends to get a little mindless. Books keep me engaged and awake throughout the whole trip. This weekend I was making the short jaunt up to my brother's place, but I thought it would be nice to have a new book. After my post about zombies, I figured I wanted a horror or supernatural book of some kind. My first thought was to try the Dresdon Files series, but when I pulled up the first book of it, it was $20! Not really interested in spending that much. Dejected, I putzed around until I saw the poster for I Am Legend somewhere online. I decided to pick up the book, since I knew it was based on a book. Popped it in, it wasn't too expensive, and I downloaded it.

Written in 1954 by Richard Matheson, it was a pretty quick book, finishing out in about 5 hours. I had never seen the Will Smith movie, nor Omega Man, nor Last Man on Earth, so I didn't really know anything about it other than it was post-apocalyptic and involved vampires (or zombies, depending on who you asked).

The book was really solid, obviously relying heavily on the strength of the main character, Robert Neville, since most of the time he's alone and dealing with his thoughts. It opens talking about his repetitive days - waking up, repairing the damage done to his house by the vampire attacks the previous night, and then, depending on the day, working on other projects. Making wooden stakes, gathering supplies, or heading out into the city to seek out vampires and kill them. In daylight, they go dormant and he finds as many as he can and puts a stake through them. Then, when it gets close to nightfall, he heads home and stays in his house until the next morning.

The vampires know where he is, but he's done a lot to make his house secure. As the book goes on, it explains why the vampires are choosing certain tactics over others, and leaves me satisfied that in the world constructed, he could actually survive.

Eventually after several fits of depression and particularly bad drunk nights, he decides to try to learn about the vampire and how everything happened. There are flashback hints as to what was happening during the time just leading up to the outbreak of vampirism, and throughout the story, clues are scattered that you can put together to come to your own conclusions.

I don't want to tell too much in case anyone wants to read it for themselves, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. I was a little worried early on that dealing with Robert's mind for five hours would become tedious, but the author keeps it fresh and while you can watch him going slowly insane and slowly losing his humanity, Robert's thoughts are always interesting and I kept wanting to know what he'd do next. If you're interested in a quick read that gives a new perspective on the whole vampire/zombie thing, give this one a try.