Soy leyenda richard matheson ebook

In this respect, the movie was more able to give the visual sense of complete loneliness and the frustration of working for a potentially futile goal.

It was also hard to have sympathy for Neville. Truly an Everyman, he drowned his emotion in alcohol as often as he attempted to control circumstance.

I didn't admire or respect him; he was dogged but not creative or thoughtful. The lapses into existential questioning only reinforced the emotional distance. The ending was a surprise; perhaps more likeable than that of the movie, but also more self-conscious and created.

There wasn't much build to the ending; there was very little sense of the "types" of vampires through the story--I had more of a sense of Neville's drinking preferences than the vampires. Still, it is a classic, so I'm glad I took the time to read it, but it feels a little too much like reading The Metamorphosis for my taste. View all 8 comments. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I just finished reading this book. Completely different from the movie The version , I wish they would have gone with this story instead.

The reader spends the whole story Which is really only pages following the last man on earth as he fights for his survival against vampires and yes, they are vampires. He boards up his house, stocks up on canned goods, and researches a way to combat this disease.

He is not a doctor or a scientist, just a regular man stuck in an irregular situatio I just finished reading this book. He is not a doctor or a scientist, just a regular man stuck in an irregular situation. But, as Matheson so beautifully states, "Man can get used to anything", and so he does - burning corpses left on his doorstep by his vampire "friends", gathering fresh garlic, and fixing up his house for them to come back each night and try to drag him out.

Robert, the main character, spends years in this manner. He breaks into a nearby library and gathers an armload of books on anything and everything he thinks will be useful. In this way, Richard Matheson gives us the first realistic look at vampires from a scientific standpoint. Some vampires are afraid of crosses because of experiences in their pre-infected life. None can stand garlic - but it must be fresh and strongly scented. The reason they turn to dust? Well, read and find out.

Learning the few ways there are to destroy them, Robert makes an attempt to kill a handful each day. They have emotions and desires beyond that of fresh blood. While Robert spends his nights locked away in his home, the infected have set about creating their own society. The most heart-wrenching moment A phrase I do not use lightly comes when a female vampire looks at Robert and tells him "I had a husband.

You killed him while he was sleeping. A fantastic look at who the monsters of this world really are. View 1 comment. This was creepy and sad too. I don't think I would have lasted long as the last person alive. I would have just given up and let myself get caught! The vampires of this story are quite zombie like, I thought. How events turn out in the end surprised me. I'm not sure if reading about a global pandemic that wiped out most of the worlds population was really wise at the minute, but the fact that they turned into vampires was a welcomed twist??

With sole survivor Robert Nevillie spends most of his days in isolation as he battles to find a cure, felt so devastatingly real. As the main theme of loneliness and repetition soon leads to depression shows how much we crave human interaction. Learing the fate of Robert's wife and daughter is even more tragic. The vampire's added a nice monster element to the narrative that otherwise would seem so bleak, Robert's urge to find a solution does at least offer some hope.

This is without doubt a classic, but some might find it too upsetting at the moment. View all 6 comments. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for all of the Will Smith jokes. It's going to be difficult, but I will refrain from including him in this review. Stuff I liked - Matheson does an amazing job in describing the situation Neville has deal with as the only person left in the world.

The scariest parts for me where when Matheson deals with themes like isolation and loneliness. That stuff was much more terrifying than the vampires more on them later. There were entire chapters of 1. There were entire chapters of the book describing Neville's fruitless attempts to find companionship.

Those chapters along with the glimpse into Neville's past with his family were really, really good. Being alone like that is much scarier than Stuff I didn't like - vampires.

Yeah, I get it. They add another level of fear to the story, and that's fine. I just felt like when the story was really taking off, it would hold itself back by getting too technical with what these creatures were, how to kill them, how to test their blood to see if they were infected, whatever. I wanted to hear more about Neville's family and how he is struggling to survive and less about what he reading at the library.

Also, I'm not really huge vampire fan anyway. I'm more of a ghost story, monster in the closet, things that go bump in the night kind of guy, I guess. Don't do it, Justin. You said no Will Smith jokes this time Click "Save", Justin. Get outta here. View all 9 comments. Four fifths of the way through and the only thing on my mind was how incredibly boring and one-dimensional Robert Neville is.

You would think that someone forced into solitude and surrounded by death and insanity would have a wonderfully colourful and twisted mind - if you're going to have a book revolving around a single character, make him a really good one.

So, it wasn't until he began chasing, abusing and kidnapping a woman in the name of science everything in this book was tunnel-viewed 'i Four fifths of the way through and the only thing on my mind was how incredibly boring and one-dimensional Robert Neville is.

So, it wasn't until he began chasing, abusing and kidnapping a woman in the name of science everything in this book was tunnel-viewed 'in the name of science' and dismissed any other possibilities and ways of thinking that I let my imagination take over the plot. I Am Legend is actually unintentionally Nabokovian. Robert Neville is a delusional psychopathic woman killer safe in his fantasy world of vampires and violence where he presents himself as the last vestige of rational thought.

Closing himself off and leading a hermitic life, he spends his time dreaming about killing the filth of humanity who haunt his dreams and bitterly reflecting on his "wife", a woman who he was unhealthily obsessed with and murdered when she became a "vampire" ie he realised that she was not his misogynist vision of an inferior, man-worshipping, overly-emotional cretin lower than a dog who he treats with more respect.

One day, he finds, abuses and kidnaps a woman and locks her in his bedroom and she tries to win her freedom through seduction though in the end finds that hitting him over the head is more effective.

He gets arrested and is made to face what he has done, his victim even developing Stockholm syndrome, but further retreats into the safety of his self-deceptive mind where he twists the conventions of the world to point himself out as a legend, the last macho, narrow-minded, patriarchal "real" man. I give this book an extra star from all the fun I had trying to salvage something interesting and in the wise words of The Smashing Pumpkins: "The world is a vampire, sent to drai-ai-aiiiiiin" View all 19 comments.

Well, on the surface it is. Robert Neville is the last human being on Earth. Everyone else has been infected with a virus that causes vampirism, but for some reason, Robert is immune. He spends his daytime hours securing his house, staking vampires, and trying to discover a cure for the virus. At night he hides indoors while the vampires, some who are his former acquaintances, try to break in. The thought, for example, of having free access to anything you want, including cars, jewelry, clothes, houses, art, scientific equipment, and every book in every bookstore and library in the world is exhilarating All those things are almost meaningless outside of their social context.

We all know that humans are social creatures, but none of us has actually experienced a total lack of companionship. What would it mean to rule the entire world alone? Matheson writes so powerfully about these emotions. The story is called I am Legend because Robert Neville gradually comes to realize that vampires, the creatures he thought were only legend, are real.

Now, Robert Neville, the elusive human being who vampires fear, has become the legend. This is one I will listen to again. By the way, I am Legend is not a full-length novel, so some versions include additional stories in a collection called I am Legend and Other Stories.

View all 42 comments. Richard Matheson may be the most underrated genre writer ever. This novel, I Am Legend, a perfect little bricolage of apocalyptic, dystopian, sci-fi, horror, vampire, zombie, is probably his best known work, although I'm partial to Somewhere in Time Bid Time Return being such a romantic sentimentalist Richard Matheson may be the most underrated genre writer ever.

This novel, I Am Legend, a perfect little bricolage of apocalyptic, dystopian, sci-fi, horror, vampire, zombie, is probably his best known work, although I'm partial to Somewhere in Time Bid Time Return being such a romantic sentimentalist. I haven't seen the movie which I understand is nothing like the book, which is too bad because I think the story is worthy of a good film.

View all 3 comments. Los Angeles, about 22 years into the future Jan. After the 'plague' finished in , Robert Neville seems to be the only human left immune and alive. He's not anywhere like Will Smith, lookwise, English-German man in late 30s with blue eyes, blond going bald and later with a beard. When we meet him he's been living at his present place for 5 months. Trying to survive, and wondering what caused eve Los Angeles, about 22 years into the future Jan. The views of the time when the book was published show in the writing: his lust-problem with vampire women no masturbation, really?

But at no point was I irritated by this old-fashioned edge, which stayed just barely from feeling a bit sexist. I don't think Matheson searched for what the meaning of the names were for this story, but I did think that naming view spoiler [his main character Robert was a very good coincidence - it means "of shining fame" Germanic.

The name already shows what he is to the human-like vampires for the feral type he's just blood-source really. And the way it ends is both view spoiler [frightening and tragic: seeing those ferals being destroyed, then being taken to be executed into the more-civilized and day-walking vampire camp. But in the end, one can sort of see that there might be a more hopeful, human-like future that Robert will not see View all 7 comments.

Shelves: vampires , horror , science-fiction. Vampire Hunter Shocker! Last Human Loses Battle with the Bottle! One guy against a world filled with vampires. I went into this book with an expectation of action.

When the story had action scenes, they were done very well, and there is a wonderfully suspenseful and thrilling chase scene in the first half of the book. However, action, suspense and thrills were absent for most of the rest of the book.

Ther Vampire Hunter Shocker! There is sad reminiscing of his past life. There is a long drawn out sequence of attempting to befriend a stray dog. There is lots of time spent getting drunk, listening to classical music while complaining about the vampires. The vampires mostly lack charisma, being more dumb brutes, than anything else view spoiler [ until late in the novel.

There is not enough here for me to rate it higher. Not a disaster, has a neat twist at the end, has some good sequences - but, I found it a bit of a snooze fest. View all 12 comments. Oct 29, KaY rated it really liked it Shelves: kindle , library-r , novella , fiction. I highly enjoyed this novel. I saw the movie first, a long time ago, and loved it. It's not the same, both are very good in their own right. The ending in the movie is very Hollywood, while the book left me speechless with so many feels, I was not expecting that.

This book had to be a commentary on where Matheson thought we were headed as a society - not just a simple tale of vampires created by a virus. It is amazing how much he fits in to a page book. I am thinking that Matheson must have been a master of telling a lot of story in very few pages. A very suspenseful and quick read.

This would be a great choice for horror fans, post apocalyptic fans, and vampire fans The Last Human 23 March I first heard about this book because somebody decided to make a movie with the same title with Will Smith as the lead role.

Well, when I saw the trailers I certainly felt that it looked quite interesting, especially since he seemed to be driving around a completely empty New York City. In fact, I sort of wonder whether that is what New York City is like these days. Melbourne certainly does seem to be much emptier than usual, and while I sort of would like to catch a The Last Human 23 March I first heard about this book because somebody decided to make a movie with the same title with Will Smith as the lead role.

Melbourne certainly does seem to be much emptier than usual, and while I sort of would like to catch a train into town just to look around, a part of me feels that maybe staying at home is a much better option though I am sure to do that sooner or later, even if only to do some grocery shopping — if I can find any groceries. Yeah, this seemed to be a rather ironic book to start reading in this day and age, with a disease ravaging the Earth and people literally hunkering down in their homes, with pretty much everything but the essential services being shut.

One thing that struck me, not from this book, but from the lighthearted banter that is flying across social media, is a list of movies that one can watch during a pandemic. Well, if you have seen the films that have been based on this book, then you probably know about this book anyway. So, we have this guy who is the only survivor after a plague pretty much turns humanity into a pack of bloodthirsty vampires. Well, sort of, and not quite, if the end of the book is anything to go by.

I guess the thing that stuck in my mind is how Zizek suggests how the whole concept of the book has been changed over the years to completely turn away from the original premise. In a way, this book is about change, and in a way, it is about social change.

Sure, Matheson uses the idea of a horde of vampires taking over the world, but in another sense, it is about how one way of life is slowly subsumed by the other. Take for instance the idea of the First Nations of the Americas. When Europeans arrived there was a thriving society but over the years they were slowly, and surely, completely wiped out.

All that remains are small pockets of individuals on reservations killing themselves with alcohol. This is also the case here in Australia, and is especially true when you wander through Sydney. The reality was that there were over a thousand nations living on this continent, but the First Nations here have simply been reduced to people playing digeridoos, and making boomerangs. In fact, they have also been relegated to the idea of unsophisticated hunter-gatherers who needed European assistance to be able to advance, not that we did all that much in the first place.

In fact, many of the First Nations people have simply been subsumed into our society, and their culture has been completely lost. So, yes, this is actually a confronting book, that exposes the nature of how humanity has the ability to simply wipe out and destroy cultures, sending them into the realm of legend.

Let me being this review by saying that I never saw any of the movie adaptations of this book. I turned the first page of "I Am Legend" with zero knowledge of what Hollywood did to it because a friend of mine gave me an important warning.

He said: "When it comes to this story, there is no movie; there is just the book". The story is Robert Neville's, the last man on Earth after a strange plague has turned every other human being into a vampire.

He lives in a carefully barricaded house, stuffed wi Let me being this review by saying that I never saw any of the movie adaptations of this book. He lives in a carefully barricaded house, stuffed with canned and frozen food, books and records, as well as a hothouse full of garlic. He spends his days in the same monotonous way: making stakes and roping up garlic cloves on every possible entrance to his refuge. When he's not doing that, he's using up all his stakes to kill the sleeping vampires in their dens.

His nights are spend listening to the vampires crawling around his house, fighting among each other and trying to lure him out. He's kind of on the edge of going insane when the book begins: this has been going on for 5 months, and he's fraying at the seams. He manages to hang on to sanity when he decides to approach the vampire situation from a scientific point of view: catch one of them, get some of their blood, study it, try to find some sort of vaccine or antibiotic to cure the disease that took away everyone he loved.

This goal carries him forward, until the day he finds himself face to face with someone else who can walk in the day time. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the prose: Matheson is succinct, but also very elegant, and he does built dramatic ramp ups of tension when you least expect it. He also conveys Neville's emotions very well: his paranoia, his heartbreak, his frustration I won't spoil anything, but there's an obvious lesson in this book: to the "monsters", the "good guy" is a murderer.

But more than the simple morals message, the thing that really stuck with me was the atmosphere of decay, paranoia and white-knuckle resistance to madness. It would be so easy for Neville to give up: all he has to do is walk out of his house after sundown and his struggle is over.

But he resists, he holes up, he fights back. The so-called twist can have more than one meaning: the importance of perspective, sure, but also the futility of fighting something so big it can never, ever be defeated. I also loved the way this book is a very self-aware vampire story. Neville gets to wondering what the deal is with the stakes and the garlic, and can't find any rational reason for their effectiveness.

This little wink to the absurdity of the legends was a really nice touch of dark humor in what could have otherwise been a way too serious and depressing book. If you like vampire stories, this is a classic that you shouldn't miss! Tom Wallace lived an ordinary life, until a chance event awakened psychic abilities he never knew he…. Audio Book CD. Ships within weeks. For over twenty years, Belasco House has stood empty. Regarded as the Mt. Everest of haunted houses, its shadowed walls have witnessed scenes of unimaginable horror and depravity.

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Oh, shut up. He looked at her in surprise. For him the word horror had become obsolete. To Robert Neville the situation merely existed as natural fact. It had no adjectives. Get yourself at least one virtue, anyway. He held one in his hand, gold and shiny in the morning sun. This, too, drove the vampires away. Was there a logical answer, something he could accept without slipping on banana skins of mysticism?