I Am Legend is a 1954 science fiction/horror novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It was influential in the development of the vampire genre as well as the zombie genre, in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease, and in exploring the notion of vampirism as a disease. The novel was a success and was adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971, and as I Am Legend in 2007, along with an...
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I Am Legend is a 1954 science fiction/horror novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It was influential in the development of the vampire genre as well as the zombie genre, in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease, and in exploring the notion of vampirism as a disease. The novel was a success and was adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971, and as I Am Legend in 2007, along with an unofficial direct to video capitalizing on that film, I Am Omega.
The novel's main character is Robert Neville, apparently the sole survivor of a viral pandemic the symptoms of which resemble vampirism. The author details Neville's daily life in Los Angeles, as he attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease that killed mankind, and to which he is immune (Neville assumes this is because he was bitten by a vampire bat who was "infected". Because it was not a human, it did not kill Neville, instead, he became ill for a period...
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