I Am Legend

Well, I finally read the book after watching that Hollywood blockbuster years ago. I must say... I didn't realise how different they were. Sure, the gist of it was there, but it's quite different.

I liked the prose in the book - it shows the thought patterns of Robert Neville, as well as his psychological state. It tries to portray what happens to a person's mind when left all alone for so long, and I think it's a fair portrayal. This is something the movie absolutely failed to capture - it's hard to capture the emotions and the pain.

You have to realise that this book was written in the 1950s, about the 1970s, twenty years into the future. The rational explanations and the use of science to explain the situation actually felt quite plausible. The vampires themselves were actually not as important as in the movie, Robert Neville was on the centre stage - the vampires were just part of the situation he's in. It's definitely not a zombie/vampire tale like the movie seems to imply it is.

And I finally understood what the phrase “I Am Legend” meant.