Mark’s review of I Am Legend > Likes and Comments
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I found some interesting resonances with M Carey's "The Girl with all the Gifts" particularly around the research that key characters were doing to try and understand/manage the apocalypse.
Have you read Dune?
I wasn’t going to search through the extensive list of books you’ve read so I thought I’d ask. I’m curious about your opinion, if you have read it :)
Ashleigh wrote: "Have you read Dune?
I wasn’t going to search through the extensive list of books you’ve read so I thought I’d ask. I’m curious about your opinion, if you have read it :)"
There's a search bar - you can find out if someone has read a book by typing that book into it!
I have read Dune (40+ years ago). I've not reviewed it. I liked it.
Calling I Am Legend generic is fair, but it's also kind of funny. It's the "Tolkien effect". After a thousand clones, The Lord of the Rings read today feels generic too, the original always ends up looking like the copy.
To me Matheson is less god's-eye than his contemporaries. He stays inside Neville almost the whole time. The trouble is it's omniscience with hiccups: he slips out for a bit, then climbs back in. Which is worse, because every slip throws you out of the fiction instead of keeping you at a stable distance. Heinlein freezes the whole scene to explain how an engine works or how you assemble a terrorist cell, but he's so blatant about it that it becomes a declared pact (and it's likeable, the way he does it!). Matheson breaks it on the sly, and reminds you you're at home reading on the couch.
The grief that doesn't land, I read differently. Neville's coldness is a portrait of what a 50s man wasn't allowed to show. And maybe not even to feel: back then, if you cried you were weak (I know people who still think that way, seventy years on). True, a great writer would make you feel that very absence... but I'm not sure Matheson himself was aware of it. The fish never notices the water. The prose is flat because his whole culture was flat when it came to handling pain.
For me the real problem is the pacing. Starts like a train, in the middle you make yourself a cup of tea while you read, then it kicks back in with a bang at the end ^^'
You've made me want to reread it, damn it
J.R. wrote: "Calling I Am Legend generic is fair, but it's also kind of funny. It's the "Tolkien effect". After a thousand clones, The Lord of the Rings read today feels generic too, the original always ends up..."
I mean ... I literally said this ... and you're implying by explaining it back to me that I did not :D
I love this book!
But just to let you know, if you can see the 2007 film with the alternative ending, its better than the theatrical. It doesn't match the book, but its far less disappointing
Mark wrote: "J.R. wrote: "Calling I Am Legend generic is fair, but it's also kind of funny. It's the "Tolkien effect". After a thousand clones, The Lord of the Rings read today feels generic too, the original a..."
Haha touché! A simple "you're right" would've done the job ^^
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Sep 19, 2025 08:40AM
I found some interesting resonances with M Carey's "The Girl with all the Gifts" particularly around the research that key characters were doing to try and understand/manage the apocalypse.
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Have you read Dune? I wasn’t going to search through the extensive list of books you’ve read so I thought I’d ask. I’m curious about your opinion, if you have read it :)
Ashleigh wrote: "Have you read Dune? I wasn’t going to search through the extensive list of books you’ve read so I thought I’d ask. I’m curious about your opinion, if you have read it :)"
There's a search bar - you can find out if someone has read a book by typing that book into it!
I have read Dune (40+ years ago). I've not reviewed it. I liked it.
Calling I Am Legend generic is fair, but it's also kind of funny. It's the "Tolkien effect". After a thousand clones, The Lord of the Rings read today feels generic too, the original always ends up looking like the copy.To me Matheson is less god's-eye than his contemporaries. He stays inside Neville almost the whole time. The trouble is it's omniscience with hiccups: he slips out for a bit, then climbs back in. Which is worse, because every slip throws you out of the fiction instead of keeping you at a stable distance. Heinlein freezes the whole scene to explain how an engine works or how you assemble a terrorist cell, but he's so blatant about it that it becomes a declared pact (and it's likeable, the way he does it!). Matheson breaks it on the sly, and reminds you you're at home reading on the couch.
The grief that doesn't land, I read differently. Neville's coldness is a portrait of what a 50s man wasn't allowed to show. And maybe not even to feel: back then, if you cried you were weak (I know people who still think that way, seventy years on). True, a great writer would make you feel that very absence... but I'm not sure Matheson himself was aware of it. The fish never notices the water. The prose is flat because his whole culture was flat when it came to handling pain.
For me the real problem is the pacing. Starts like a train, in the middle you make yourself a cup of tea while you read, then it kicks back in with a bang at the end ^^'
You've made me want to reread it, damn it
J.R. wrote: "Calling I Am Legend generic is fair, but it's also kind of funny. It's the "Tolkien effect". After a thousand clones, The Lord of the Rings read today feels generic too, the original always ends up..."I mean ... I literally said this ... and you're implying by explaining it back to me that I did not :D
I love this book!But just to let you know, if you can see the 2007 film with the alternative ending, its better than the theatrical. It doesn't match the book, but its far less disappointing
Mark wrote: "J.R. wrote: "Calling I Am Legend generic is fair, but it's also kind of funny. It's the "Tolkien effect". After a thousand clones, The Lord of the Rings read today feels generic too, the original a..."Haha touché! A simple "you're right" would've done the job ^^
