I Am Legend (book), Gollancz SF
I just finished the I Am Legend novella of Richard Matheson. I must say it is much more satisfying than the movie, as it takes loneliness and isolation to the next level. And unlike in the movie, Matheson’s Robert Neville is not some special military officer scientist with a hunk of a body, but an everyman who just happened to be immune to the vampiric disease. And while Neville is surrounded by vampires this time around, Matheson approaches the phenomenon with science behind it – and almost convincingly. He thus breaks genre by making a vampire novel also a science fiction one, while still heavily grounded on the human psychology.
And I also love the suggestion that, when a man is left to himself with no clear purpose in life, he turns into an utmost nerd.
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The edition I got is from a set of SF books called Gollancz SF published by Orion in the UK. While the Gollancz SF series span many, many books, titles at the back of I Am Legend only enumerates ten; presumably a particular batch of the Gollancz releases.
Cities in Flight by James Blish
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys
Gateway by Frederick Pohl
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
The Dispossesed by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Ubik by Philip K. Dick*already read!
I am making a note to get most of them sometime in the future.