I am Legend

I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson
ORB, 1995. 317 pgs. Fiction

This is the story of Robert Neville, apparently the last man on earth after a deadly plague kills most of the population. Most survivors were transformed them into vampires. Neville seems to be the only exception. He experiments with the several ideas concerning vampires, the effect of garlic and crucifixes, sleeping in the dirt, the idea of vampires casting no reflection in mirrors, etc. He starts to determine what is true and what is not. He also becomes curious about what actually caused these transformations—from a scientific point of view. These questions occupy him as he lives for years alone in his house. He reads books from the Public Library, obtains a microscope, studies blood samples. He eventually develops a theory about vampire legends. Then he sees another survivor—a young woman...

SML