Richard Matheson - I am Legend

I saw the movie version of "I am Legend" a few years ago before reading the book. I was really happy to find that the movie version and the original book Matheson wrote are different enough to stand on their own. I didn't imagine the character in the book looking like Will Smith, or even imagine him in the same kind of city environment. I found that I really enjoyed reading the book and became immersed in the world very quickly. One of my favorite parts about it was understanding how Neville felt and the emotions he was going through in his daily "routines." I thought the monsters in the book made it seem like they were pure vampires, but after talking about it in class, it really did seem like they were hybrid zombie vampire creatures. I was thinking about how we are seeing a lot of apocalypse themes show up lately, along with the popularity of zombies. I personally am not a huge fan of zombies, but I am interested in some apocalypse scenarios. The only other apocalypse book I read was "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and possibly "1984" by George Orwell. Either way, kind of negative views on the future (a natural disaster apocalypse by nature, or an apocalypse created by man via nuclear war, or enslavement). I thought it was funny how it was kind of joked about being real preparation for a real apocalypse, and although a real apocalypse might not involve zombies, it does seem likely that it could happen and prepare us mentally. I'm sure for some people in Europe during World War II it may as well have been the apocalypse. Matheson's version of an apocalypse had a very interesting twist on it though that I very much enjoyed. The human being the monster and the vampires being the new order of things, in turn, Neville become legend, a creature of fiction.