My First Review

I'm going to start the reviewing with a book. A book I have read before but was inspired to read again due to several friends comments on it. I figured that since it had been about a decade since the last time I read it, now was as good a time as any. That Book is I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.


Please keep in mind, this is a review for the book. I have not yet seen the new movie with Will Smith, only Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price. Which, by the way, I highly recommend and will probably review when I watch it again.

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Onto the book. I was engrossed from the very beginning to the very end. I am a big fan of the Vampire genre, so it takes a lot to impress me at this point. There are far too many Buffy and Anne Rice wannabes out there, and it lost its magic a long time ago. So it makes sense that if you want to find a good vampire story, you have to go back to when it still had that delicious undead freshness. Sure you could go all the way back to Dracula if you want a TRUE classic. But let's say you want to start with something a bit more modern, something that is down to the bone creepy. Then this book is definitely the way to go.

"Our Hero" Robert Neville lives out his life surrounded by a city of vampires that pounds upon his door every night. He is the sole survivor of a plague that has turned the living and the dead into blood craving demons. This book was written in 1954 but the story begins in 1976 after a supposed war. The book chronicles about three years of Neville's life, with flashbacks to a time before the plague took full control of humanity.

It is written in a very matter of fact style, leaving very little to the imagination in terms of Neville's daily habits and innermost thoughts. This is not a book for a younger child as the descriptions of violence, while not explicit, can be unnerving, and as I just stated, we are privy to Neville's though process, which does include his hated lust for the vampire women who come to his door at night.

The style is probably the story's biggest draw. It is not the flashy, fancy prose of Anne Rice or Bram Stoker, and the vampires do not have the erotic mystique that they do in those stories. They are treated more like vermin by Neville than anything fanciful and fantastic. This story has been credited with inspiring authors like Stephen King to begin writing, and it is not difficult to see where the link between this and 'Salem's Lot blossomed.

I would not be exaggerating to say that the book had me on the edge of my seat. It is a thought provoking tale of what mankind is when reduced to its basic instinct; survival. It is more a commentary on humanity than it is a vampire story, although throughout the book Neville does attempt to put "science" to the vampire and figure out its origin and reason for continued existence. Its ending is indeed fascinating as it does, in fact, give an end to the story as so few books, stories and films do now in our culture. I would not say that that is something revolutionary in and of itself, but it does mean that you can safely close the book at the end.

Altogether the book wins on many levels. It is a quick read, yet not so quick as to make you feel that you have missed out on something important. It has some wonderful real nailbitingly intense action, beautifully powerful drama, and a message that drives into your brain with all the power of a bolt of lightning. Exactly what it says about our species as a whole, I'll leave up to you. Go read this book, and enjoy it for what it is, nothing more, nothing less.