"I am legend"

I've mentioned my love of reading several times in the past, and I've also mentioned (I think) that I mostly read non-fiction books.  However, I have to admit that I also really enjoy reading dystopian fiction.  Perhaps I will give a list of my favorite dystopian fiction stories at some point in the future.  These stories are interesting to me, because (1) they usually are very well written, (2) they generally involve an interesting story, and (3) they frequently reveal a lot about human behavior, both the good and the bad.  We've sort of lived through our own dystopian story these past couple of years with the COVID-19 pandemic, and what is clear to me that times of crisis reveal a great deal about one's character and resilience.  Some individuals fold during times of stress, while others seem to rally and find ways to persevere.  Rather than living through another pandemic, we can learn so much about resilience and perseverance by reading dystopian fiction.

I just finished the novella I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.  The story was written in 1954, and it's been adapted into three movies over the years: The Last Man on Earth (1964), starring Vincent Price, The Omega Man (1971), starring Charlton Heston, and I Am Legend (2007), starring Will Smith.  The novella also apparently was an inspiration for George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead (1968).  For example, Romero said when talking about the creation of his movie, "I had written a short story, which I basically had ripped off from a Richard Matheson novel called I Am Legend."  The highly acclaimed author Stephen King said, "Books like I Am Legend were an inspiration to me."

The story takes place in 1976 Los Angeles, California after an apocalyptic war and global pandemic (similar to World War I and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic).  Richard Neville is seemingly the "Last Man on Earth" and is left to fend for himself.  The pandemic has killed the rest of the human population and has turned infected survivors into "vampires".  During the day, Neville is free to roam around the city, and every night he barricades himself inside his house and occasionally fights off attacking "vampires" (the vampires seem more like zombies, in my opinion).

It was hard for me to put the book down.  It's very well written, and the story was really interesting.  I think that there are two major difference between the most recent movie version, which I also thoroughly enjoyed, and the book.  First, the book focuses more on how the main character, Richard Matheson, reacts to his forced solitude.  It's a great character study, as we get to see how Neville hits the proverbial rock bottom and then slowly recovers over time to eventually demonstrate incredible resilience.  Second, the book ends with a great plot twist that is very different than the movie.  The book ends with the sentence, "I am legend."  I won't spoil why.  The book is fairly short (about 175 pages in length), and it's a superb story on a subject that is more relevant to me, now that we've been through the COVID-19 pandemic.  I highly recommend it!