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I read this book a while back but that was before I was writing book reviews and when I saw it on the shelf I thought that it should be included in my list of book reviews so I read it again. It is really short and after the I am Legend story there are a bunch of really short stories. These seem unrelated but add to the total page count for the book so I guess that was a marketing thing or something. I didn’t finish all the additional short stories but I am Legend is a quick read and contains no filler.

The story is about the last “normal” human in a world full of night-roving lunatics out to kill him. His name is Robert Neville. These psychos come every night and wait just outside his small home and try to entice him to come out. Sometimes the same ones come and sometimes new lunatics show up. The women pull up their dresses to show him what he is missing and the men call him names and throw rocks. What they want is his blood, which is in short supply now that the world is consumed by bloodsuckers. He resists them and spends his days finding them in their dark hideouts and killing them.

When Robert isn’t killing these night-time ne’er-do-wells he is repairing his home, researching ways to kill or potentially cure these creatures, and drinking. His constant struggle for sanity causes him to fluctuate between lucid purpose-driven activities that might lead toward a better world and a drunken madness borne of loneliness and despair. This dark psychology is brought into sharp focus by the author and offers a dreadful look at humanity at its bleakest. When outside is only death how do you retain the positive aspects of what it means to be human?

One day Robert finds a woman, out in the day, and seemingly as lost as he is. But how can he know that she truly is a human? He takes her into his home and after a while, they start to feel safe around each other, and hope creeps into his life. Is this the companion he so longs for or is she the beginning of the end for Robert?

This is a very well-written and exciting book to read. It is easy to get caught up in the peril and suspense the main character faces on a daily basis. You can’t help but put yourself in his shoes and imagine what kind of hell it would be like to survive in such a desolate and unforgiving world. It reminds me of other post-apocalyptic tales but separates itself by being simple and precise. The story is about the rawest, animalistic aspects of humanity and what we are willing to suffer in order to survive. It is also about how we evolve and adapt to our environment, no matter how unimaginably cruel. I highly recommend this book and hope that, one day, they will make a worthy movie adaptation. The 2007 movie was not a good representation of the book, although it had its excitement.

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