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I Am Legend

Written by: Richard Matheson
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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Publisher's Summary

The basis for the film starring Academy Award nominee Will Smith, I Am Legend is a classic of horror and suspense.

In I Am Legend, a terrible plague has decimated the world, and those who were unfortunate enough to survive are transformed into bloodthirsty creatures of the night. Robert Neville is the last living man on earth. Every other man, woman, and child has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville’s blood. By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?

Richard Matheson’s chilling tale is a white-knuckle ride into a world of darkness and terror.

©1954, 1982 by Richard Matheson (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

What the critics say

"One of the ten all-time best novels of vampirism." ( Fangoria)
"The most clever and riveting vampire novel since Dracula." (Dean Koontz)
"I think the author who influenced me most as a writer was Richard Matheson. Books like I Am Legend were an inspiration to me." (Stephen King)

What listeners love about I Am Legend

Average Customer Ratings
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Excellent

If you saw the movie based (loosely) on this story, cool. Now forget that, because the story is way better. And way more sobering.

Robert Neville's journey is a long, lonely one, and also not a very hopeful one. The ending is unexpected, at least for me, but not unpleasant. It suits the feel of the story. I felt reminded of Stephen King as I listened.

The narration is excellent as well, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Robertson Dean's performance. There isn't a lot of conversational dialogue, so it stands out when there is, and is performed superbly.

Highly recommended for a quicker listen, and I will look for other titles by this narrator as well!

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not as good as the movie

Admittedly it's not the same story as the movie. Other reviews had argued its better than the movie, so I gave it a shot. The story just wasn't that great. It's based when it was written, around the 50s, so there's some obvious differences but the ending just wasn't that interesting. Decent way to burn 5 hours, but still nothing to write home about.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Wanted to like it more!

I was disappointed with this story. The performance was great and I am a fan of the genre. Yes I made the mistake of watching the movie years ago but only vaguely remembered how it ended. I enjoyed the journey of the story and the performance but when I reached the end it was so unsatisfying. It is a dark and lonely story, You have to take a lot for granted; his ability to fix the cars, maintain a generator to run a freezer etc. Anyone who has run a generator during a long power outage would recognize that as a monumental feat., Why had stuff not expired?, How was he able to consistently find and access stabilized gas. I did not understand his limited stockpile and use of available firearms. His choice to stay where he was for so long. Despite all that, I was drawn into Neville's world and felt for his loss. He should have been dead many times over but he was a survivor deliberately or not. The ending was (for me anyway) not consistent with the story. Perhaps it was inevitable but so unsatisfying. That said I want to go through it again to see what I may have missed and perhaps that will change how I feel about the story. Great performance.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very well done.

Better story than the modern movie.
Well read, consistent with excellent pacing & tempo.
Shorter than I thought (time flies).

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great narrator, surprisingly good story

The narrator was amazing. the story was surprisingly good, sometimes boring but usually gripping. fascinating concept

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

s'alright.

I'll be the 1000th person to say it has almost nothing to do with the movie. if you enjoyed the movie, just keep that. This is a more old-school style fiction. it's not without merit, but it certainly offers no enrichment to the experience you've had, and provides a fair bit of cringe.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Much better than the film!

I absolutely loved it. Neville's character chills you to the bone, having your heart begin to race as if you were there with him in the story.
Such a shame the movie producers went with such a poor version of this story.

10/10

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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Awful. Don’t even think about it

This is a terrible book. I personally loved the movie and usually they say “the book is always better”… well this is the exception. This book is nothing like the movie, it’s vulgar and the main character has no scientific background. Rather he stares at the female dead and thinks about doing in inappropriate things to their bodies. It’s sickening. There isn’t even a solid story line and the themes of vampires/garlic/mirrors/etc is just brutally presented. 10/10 the WORST audiobook I have ever listened to. The only savor was the narrator who had a good voice

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Terrifying Classic

A terrifying classic about end of the world loneliness. How difficult it is to keep your sanity and still survive.
A must read for all.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

If you loved the movie don’t select this title

I expected the book to vary from the movie. They always do. This is the rare exception where the book is NOT better than the movie.

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  • Steven Casper
  • 2008-01-24

Superb!

Like a lot of reviewers, I saw the movie before I ever heard of the book. In fact, I decided to read the book because I was hoping for some clarification about some concepts and ideas that the movie hinted at but didn't explain.

Rather than reading it, I bought it on Audible and let somebody else read it to me. From the start I knew this book was not going to be the movie. Neville was definitely not the same man in the book that Will Smith portrayed in the movie. A lot of the questions raised by the movie were not answered, though many others were.

I liked that Neville wasn't some super-hero action star in the book. He was a normal guy just trying to survive in a world that didn't want or need him anymore. He was intelligent and given to learning, but he was also very dark, depressed and lonely. I pictured a Steve Buscemi in the book far more than a Will Smith.

Rather than saying if you liked the movie you won't like the book, I'd rather say that if you liked the movie, you may also like the book, just don't expect it to be the same story. The movie is only very loosely based on the book.

One more thing, when I saw the movie I thought "wow, the infected people are kind of vampiric", but they never used the word vampire, rather calling them "dark-seekers". The book was very prolific in the use of the word vampire, and I loved the history of vampirism as explained in the book much much more than the reasons given (well, sort of given) in the movie.

Summary: Great fiction, great character development. Sometimes melodramatic narration (to be expected in an audio-only reading). Got a little long-winded and obscure during some of the exposition around the disease, and yet still intriguing to the curious mind. Over all, I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anybody who can handle the darkness of a post-apocalyptic world where the protagonist is not an action-hero superstar!

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220 people found this helpful

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  • Jim "The Impatient"
  • 2016-04-25

ROBERT NEVILLE, THE LAST OF THE OLD RACE

THE HABIT OF LIVING
Written in 1954, this book stands the test of time. Course if written today, the vampires would be Zombies. At least two movies have been made of this, but neither followed the book totally. The movies are good and the book is good. While this is a Horror, it is also Science Fiction. The book is entertaining and thought provoking. I highly recommend it. The narrator is excellent.

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  • finhead
  • 2007-10-15

five star book!

This is really a fantastic book. None of the movies based on it really do it justice. This is a very intimate telling of one man's experience with the end of civilization as he knows it. Movie adaptations always have to add more action or add new elements. What makes this novel so remarkable and memorable, however, is just how intimate the story telling is and how much I find myself caring about Robert Neville's character.

It's particularly remarkable to me how well this story holds up considering it was written in 1954. It is written in such a way as to have very, very few aspects that date the story. It is just as easy to visualize the story as happening today as I believe it would have been 50 or 60 years ago.

It is, in my opinion, a very intelligent and smartly written book and I'd recommend it wholeheartedly. The narrator is a perfect match for the material as well! I'd give it more stars if I could!

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  • Mel
  • 2013-05-09

'HE is Legend'

I enjoyed every aspect of this brief, well produced audible version of I Am Legend, (and especially recommend if you can pick it up when Audible has one of its special offers). Dean's narration made the listen as animated as a Columbia Broadcasting System radio presentation ala Orson Wells doing H.G. Well's War of the Worlds.

Bless Matheson for bringing us the concept of a vampire apocalypse! Because of his imagination and talent, so many of Matheson's books and stories were translated to movies and TV. Loved, loved, reading the reviews and opinions about the book vs. the multiple movie versions of I Am Legend. Either I am not so opinionated, or just easily entertained, because I thought all the book to movie interpretations were great fun ... from the Vincent Price version (which embarrassed author/screenwriter Matheson resulting in him using a pseudo-name in the end credits aka *Logan Swanson*); especially the very campy Omega Man, the vampires replaced with the *Family* of albino mutants [so bad it was good]; and finally to Will Smith's intellectualized NY version with the *Darkseekers*. As fun or as creepy, none of those versions equal the book and it's emphasis on the psychological impact of being alone.

Why read this book when we know the story almost ad nauseam - in hundreds of incarnations? Because 'MATHESON is legend'. Give a quick look at his Wiki profile.... The Legend of Hell House, What Dreams May Come, Somewhere in Time, A Stir of Echoes, I Am Legend, Steel, Duel (yes directed by Spielberg), The Night Stalker, Twilight Zone episodes (including intro and closing every show), Star Trek episodes. If you are still unconvinced of his genius - remember the Zuni fetish doll that chased Karen Black around her NY apartment with a carving knife?....Matheson's creation! And the piece de resistance....Nightmare at 20,000 Feet -- William Shatner looking out the window from his airline seat at a gremlin tearing the steel and wire cables from a rear jet engine. I think I'd rather see vampires at my door.

It's not so much an issue of *holding up to time* as to how many times it has been done; but read with the knowledge that this was the first...wow. What a legacy--what a legend!

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49 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • Jeffrey veals
  • 2018-08-06

Richard Matheson is Ahead of his Time

HEADER: It seems that when I like a book, I get "helpful" votes and when I don't like a book, I get "not helpful" votes. I don't understand this and I never will, but just know that I'm not going to like every book you're going to like. Also, if you happen to love the book and I dislike it, that doesn't mean my review didn't help you. Did it not give you an alternate perspective? Thanks---J. Veals

Unfortunately, I saw the Will Smith version of this movie before I was able to listen to and read this book; however, I was able to separate the two and make it so this book was something completely different, despite enjoying the Will Smith version.

The story follows Richard Neville who barricades himself in his house each night when the blood-thirst, plagued group around his house, taunting Richard to let his guard down. During the day, he makes his way to infecteds' lairs and kills them in order to lower the population of the sick.

I'm not going to compare the movie to the book, but I am going to say that the title of the book and movie makes A LOT more sense in the novel. When I was watching the film, the 'I Am Legend' thing just was like an... "eh..." thing for me, but when I heard the last bit of the book, it was like "OHHHHH!!!!" Mr. Matheson is seriously one of my favorite sci-fi/horror authors of the time and currently, because his novels can stand up with today's scary books in so many ways. 'Hell House' is the other book by Mr. Matheson that makes me think of him as one of the GREATS!

So, I give the book a B+ in my grading scale and Robertson Dean, the narrator, was pretty good so I'll give him a solid B. It's definitely NOT THE MOVIE! So, even if you've watched 'I am Legend' with Will Smith, I'd suggest you listen or read this book. You can totally see how different the two really are!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Harv
  • 2009-07-08

My favorite Science Fiction Novella of all-time..

I bought Matheson's masterpiece as a young teenager in the early 60s, on a family vacation trip.. sat on a deserted beach, alone, and read it cover-to-cover.. been waiting for an audio version for eons.. and grabbed Audible's the other day.. the narration is FANtastic, and of course, 100% true to the book, unlike the three filmed versions.. the 50s low-budget Vincent Price film, "The Last Man on Earth" is probably the truest to the book.. the 70s "Omega Man" with Charlton Heston is a joke.. the 2007 correctly-titled Will Smith version isn't bad, but so far from Matheson's original work as to almost be an entirely different character and story, especially the ending.. but I suppose the producers giving it the usual Hollywood mega-million $ CGI-laden, "blowin' up a lot of stuff" treatment for contemporary movie audiences with the attention span of a gnat was not unexpected.. but transmogrifying Robert Neville from a suburan El Lay everyman trying to do his best to maintain his sanity and survive alone in an insane world, to a high-ranking military Doctor in NYC made NO sense to me at all.. the newest film removed the whole ambience of the book, radically changed / ripped out / added characters.. it's just not Matheson's original.. so this novella still has never been properly filmed to stay true to the book, and probably never will be..

As a five hour plus audio book, I found it very tough to pause / bookmark and come back to it later.. I wanted to listen to it all the way through.. it did not disappoint except in one small (?) aspect.. had I produced it, I would have used a female narrator to read Ruth's lines..

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  • Darwin8u
  • 2012-10-09

Interesting, Zombi-pocalyptic/Vampire Robinsonade

Not your mamma's vampire story. Actually, if your mamma was reading in the mid-fifties, this actually might have actually been your mamma's vampire story. Matheson was writing Stephen King novels when Stephen King was a just a wee Maine boy dreaming of them. This is annteresting, zombi-pocalyptic/vampire robinsonade. Not brilliant, flawed in parts, but still a very very good first novel.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • Thomas
  • 2007-11-10

Thrilling and intense

I was very surprised with how thrilling and intense this book was. Not your typically vampire tale, this one really explores the emotional drain on our hero of simply being alone...the last person on earth. It's a great mixture of excitement, thrills, and emotion. I highly recommend this book!

And the narration was really superb.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • Brad
  • 2008-10-19

Dark. Awesome.

A quick listen, I got through the whole thing on a short road-trip. The narration suits the mood very well, the readers gruff voice bringing Neville to life and building the suspense of the story. I've never seen the movie (as some others have mentioned) but I've heard this original story has a much more interesting philosophical twist at the end and makes for a much darker and more interesting conclusion.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Robbie
  • 2008-05-05

Wish they would make a movie from this book!

Yeah, yeah... I like Will Smith. He's fun to watch! I also admit to having enjoyed the movie, for what it was... a popcorn, eye candy, special-effects extravaganza. But, it was NOT "I Am Legend".

Anyway, as for this audiobook, I say BRAVO! I enjoyed the slow pacing and the vocal performance was perfect. Don't download expecting a novelization of the movie, it's far, far different.

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  • Anonymous User
  • 2020-07-30

Matheson masterpiece

A great story about the last man alive. You can feel the loneliness of the character. Moments in this book will make you cry while others will scare you to death.
Highly recommend

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