I Am Legend by Richard Matheson is one of my favourite books. It is a genre spanning classic merging apocalyptic fiction, sci-fi and horror whilst turning the lone-vampire-terrorising-Carpathian-village paradigm completely upside-down.
Robert Neville is a lone survivor in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a plague that has made vampires of its victims. He ekes out an existence in Los Angeles: scavenging and systematically hunting and killing vampires by day; besieged by a blood-thirsty horde at night.
Starved of human contact, his loneliness brings bouts of depression from which he retreats into the embrace of alcohol. The constant nightly assault of the plague’s victims bring him to the brink of madness but in time he comes to think it may be possible to cure the disease, to reverse its effect and regain some measure of societal sanity. So he begins a study of blood, bacteria, psychology and other branches of science in search of a treatment that will restore normality.
Of course, in such a world, things can never be so straight-forward.
Although a fairly short book (about 160 pages), I Am Legend is packed with ideas and information. It contains elements of horror and science fiction, as well as strands of science fact. There are vampires and violence and what I still consider a brilliant sting in the tail. But all that aside, I think it is essentially a tale of loneliness and abandonment. An examination of the most terrifying aspect of being alive, perhaps – being completely and utterly bereft of any human contact. As such I think it works very well and I doubt there is anyone that wouldn’t be moved by Robert Neville’s plight.
What else? Well, there are the movies: The Last Man On Earth – a very good movie starring the great Vincent Price and perhaps the truest to the novel; The Omega Man, not so faithful to the book, starring the even greater Charlton Heston (a movie that I remember very fondly from childhood days); and finally, the effects driven modern adventure romp I Am Legend starring Will Smith (whose greatness is still to be decided, at least for me) and perhaps only a distant relation to the novel. There may be others but these are the ones I’ve seen and I’d pick The Omega Man as my favourite.
Ah, well, maybe it is better to set the movies to one side and settle for the book.