I Am Legend

I Am Legend, written back in 1954, is an incredible work of dystopian literature, which initially disappointed me because of its slowness, excessive technicalities and defeatist nature. There are so many scientific fumblings, anger management issues and frustrations at being all alone in an inescapable atmosphere of oppression in a dead world with no future and no-one to keep you company besides the walking, rampaging dead at night.

I Am Legend is written like this on purpose, to draw you into a world where the only sense of continuing through life as a sole survivor is incredible personal drive and sheer stubbornness, considering how unhappy, lonely and futile it all becomes, while undertaking a hell-bent mission to gradually whittle down the vampire masses as a viable solution to survive, within an accessible home-base radius of a few miles.

I Am Legend is morose and depressing, and Richard Matheson does a brilliant job of making you feel that way. If you read this book and decide to give up halfway through, please don't. The impact of the overall message is worth all the dystopian moroseness thrown at you and then some more.

This is a relatively short book and has NOTHING to do with the movie with Will Smith in it, except for the Vampire threat, which makes the book even more surprising in comparison.

This is one of the cleverest and disturbing pieces of dystopian literature I have ever read, which is a strange thing to say when it drags you down so much. Every day, the main character gets up, repairs the outside of his house, cleans up, checks all systems are go and goes through the same routine over and over again. He can't get in his car and drive off because there's nothing out there and there's no surviving when night comes anyway. He is trapped forever and decides to systematically clear the entire district during the day until the vampires eventually stop coming at night. It seems like a logical plan, to rid his mini universe of evil through hard endeavour and sold research.

It's a shocking book in a totally unexpected way and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys this type of literature.