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I Am Legend (S.F. Masterworks) |
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by: Richard Matheson |
List Price: £6.99 Price: £3.49 You Save: £3.50 (50%)Prices subject to change. Used Price: £0.98 Third Party New Price: £2.31 This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours |
| Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813 EAN: 9781857988093 ISBN: 1857988094 Label: Gollancz Manufacturer: Gollancz Number Of Pages: 160 Publication Date: January 21, 1999 Publisher: Gollancz Studio: Gollancz Sales Rank: 1245 |
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| Editorial Review: 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 |
| Customer Reviews |
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Rating:  - Brilliant! After watching the movie I just had to read the book, I'm a sucker for that. If I love the movie I have to find out if there was a book, and I go and get it. I have to say I totally love the movie, love Will Smith, he's great actor and in 'I Am Legend' he is brilliant! So, I've read the book and I was not disappointed. I was expecting it to be the same story as the movie, after all the book came first, but it isn't. It is like reading about a totally different story. A really good ... Read More Rating: - If you know the film, you dont know the bookThis is an amazing book, I confess to it being my first encounter with the sci fi masterworks range (I'm now a total addict), that I found the cover totally intriguing and the idea that vampires could feature in a sci fi tale even more so. Since reading the book I've seen all the movie adaptations, the Will Smith movie has nothing to do with the book and you could only say its loosely inspired by the book (no surprise to fans of Asimov), The Omega Man similarly isnt that great an adaptation ... Read More Rating: - A Genuine Legend..Steven King's introduction identifies Matheson as a major influence and virtually credits him with re-inventing the modern horror genre. And rightly so. I've only just read this (shame on me) and am amazed! It really is the granddaddy of the modern zombie genre. And of much vampire fiction too. Added to that it has several twists in the tail that are completely unexpected which put its imitators firmly in the shade (including the film). An extraordinary achievement. A must read. ... Read More Rating: - Superb.Justifying killing - or trying to - is a more pointed argument when taken in the individual; governments cloud the simplicity with rhetoric, propoganda and patriotism; but, keep the numbers down and the subject is raw and demanding attention. Matheson strips the numbers down to one in this book, and one has no problem in coming down on the side of Robert Neville - the book's lead, and almost only, character. One feels his panic when he discovers his watch has stopped and cannot get ... Read More Rating: - A VERY QUICK READ!I just couldn't put this down and it isn't typical of my preferred reading. I was completely drawn in as soon as I started it and my life went on hold until I finished it. A very enthralling book |
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