Richard Matheson - I Am Legend (Book Review)

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"I Am Legend" (Amazon: UK, USA)
by Richard Matheson (Wikipedia)
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
Publisher: Gollancz

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Before I get on with the review let me caution you that there are a few major spoilers included - I just couldn’t write a coherent review without them; so if you haven’t read the book yet or are strictly against knowing in advance some of the important issues that the book raises, you should consider not reading further.
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I bought this book based on many recommendations, most of them coming from trusted sources, and I’m glad to say that they’ve once more hit the spot. I bought I Am Legend with a bunch of other books last month, when I was visiting Croatia for one of their biggest SF conventions – SFeraKon (the guest of honor was no other than Richard Morgan). I was determined to be thrifty, but when I decided that I needed every other book on sale at the convention…then the spending spree was inevitable (In my defense, this time around I went for “pure” quality…I bought several titles from SF Masterworks series). My to-read-pile is enormous and since I don’t have an exact schedule worked out I never know which book I’ll read next. I picked up I Am Legend on a pure whim. What I heard about the book before I bought it is that it’s good and while I really wanted to see the movie (starring Will Smith) I decided against it…at least until I read the book first.
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I have to agree with all the praise and really cannot question its inclusion in the fabulous SF Masterworks series – it’s absolutely stunning. I was actually surprised when I found out that it was written way back in 1954 because it could as easily be conceived by any of the current writers – any talented writer at any rate. Matheson set the story in the late seventies (so it counts as a near future post-apocalypse story; at least by that era’s standards). One of the rare clues that give away the fact that the book was written more than five decades ago is the lack of modern technology (computers, mobile phones,…), but while the lack of mobile phones is understandable -- the last man on earth really has no need for them – a microwave and a few other modern gadgets would come in quite handy if he had them at disposal. The depiction of vampires is quite outdated (naïve) as well, especially for post-Interview With the Vampire-era, where Buffy the Vampire Slayer inspired series and urban fantasy literature thrives. But I guess it could easily reflect the view of a modern person that never cared about any horror movies and vampire series.
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The post-apocalyptic urban setting devoid of life and the main protagonist -- a middle-aged American, practical and witty by nature – remind me heavily of Stephen King’s The Stand and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I suppose it’s one of the main reasons why this novel is called an ageless classic :). Besides, regardless of the year in which the book was conceived it takes the events on a whole new level.
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When “post-apocalypse” is mentioned, one inadvertently envisions a bleak and ravaged setting that usually entails the following elements: (1) a small number of survivors coping with chaos and imminent extinction and (2) those same survivors striving to reestablish some sort of order (civilization). In I Am Legend Matheson chose a bit different approach – the society is being actively rebuilt all right, but not by humanity as we know it. The harbinger of the apocalypse in this case is a bacterium that causes people to transform into vampires, and since nobody actually dies from the infection (or rather – they don’t stop living), there is plenty of the so called “survivors” that can rebuild the civilization as they see fit. The apocalypse in this case does not devastate, but trans-morphs – it presents a switch between two modes-of-being that brings the extinction of one race and the birth of another. Hence the title of the book – as the vampire society comes to be, so the human society drifts into myth and becomes a legend almost overnight.
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The main protagonist, Mr.Neville, presents a glitch in this new system, a true anachronism, but otherwise a likable and sympathetic fellow (from the readers perspective that is) – a perfectly ordinary person, not the brightest or the strongest, but definitely one of the most stubborn and resilient, a true survivor (the reason behind why he hasn’t changed is a mere coincidence). He adapts, studies books learns the hard way how to improve his chances of survival against the vampire society. In time he comes to accept the fact that they are not as brainless and evil as he believed them to be – they are as intelligent race of individuals as we are – or, in this case, were. It’s just as hard as with many brilliant works of fiction that manage to touch you in a profound and emotional way, to be one hundred percent objective and analytic – you are prone to let yourself go and just enjoy the ride. This is exactly why this book earned its place with the rest of the SF Masterworks. Strongly recommended and something that fans of post-apocalyptic fiction need to read, if they want to call themselves that.
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(you should bear in mind that this is a very subjective grade – even more so than usual, and is based more on my reading experience than any objective analysis I could muster up)
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~ Trin ~

Dan Simmons - The Terror (Book Review)

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"The Terror" came as a welcome refreshement after all the fantasy I've read lately. There are absolutely no dragons involved, neither is there any magic or mighty knights strutting out of the pages. Yay! (There are, however, some affluent and snotty snobs, but in the terms of the 19th century England's upper class rather than medieval nobility.) This is one of the things that gives "The Terror" such appeal and a particular feeling of substantiality.
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At first, I've had some second thoughts about buying the book, since I've read a couple of reviews that left me confused and unconvinced. While some reviewers praised the book as if they had been paid for it, others complained about it being long-winded and including too many complex and unfamiliar nautical terms that really bear down on the story.

This last thing must've been written by some ''spoiled'' native speaker, because although I still haven't got a slightest idea who a caulker could be (or more specifically, what his job is), I understood well enough that he has some kind of a professional function on the ship and I'm completely satisfied with that. If English is your mother tongue, you can take your time and look up the unknown words in the dictionary – there really aren't that many in the book. And if you're not a native speaker, you don't need to worry, because not being able to discern different parts of the deck will not rob you of jour reading experience. Besides, everybody knows that constant skimming through the dictionary is a time-consuming activity that usually breaks the flow of the reading process. (I looked up what the hell a 'sperm whale' could be, though, and it figures out that it's the Moby Dick one. I nearly died laughing afterwards. :)
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Secondly, the book is eons away from boring. Simmons' style of writing is brilliant (as I've already induced from reading "Hyperion" and its immediate sequel) and keeps the reader awake and alert – at least until s/he decides that the stuff is getting too scary since it's very, VERY dark outside and maybe s/he should stop reading the book until tomorrow when there's plenty of light. The amount of scary you feel probably depends on your personality and while I don't consider myself the kind of girl who gets scared easily, I really dislike the idea of an unknown evil lurking in the dark (it's always better to know exactly who or what you are up against). Especially since the arctic night lasts for 24 hours a day; it's pretty damn frustrating. I have to admit I was very glad when there was someone else in the room with me when I was reading. That helped to prevent my imagination from going wild, but the book in consequence lost some of its effect.

Another thing I've noticed is how impossibly knowledgeable Simmons is and how much effort he put into researching the book's topic. While explaining just about everything that is of any relevance regarding the expedition (I read a Wikipedia article about it afterwards and it only proved that, excluding the 'evil' thing, "The Terror" follows the recorded facts faithfully, thus being a (partly) historical novel as well as a horror one); he studied and explained the Esquimaux's culture as well. What I also loved is the hommage to E. A. Poe (mentioned in the novel as 'that American writer' – one of my favourite chapters in the book is a tribute to his "The Masque of the Red Death").

When I try to find a weak spot that would mar the book, I seem to fail. Maybe the ending will not be to everyone's satisfaction since it is pretty unusual, but for me presents an interesting alternative to the 'classical' endings we are so familiar with. I actually liked the loose ends left hanging. I'm ordinarily against giving a perfect score – I agree with Thrinidir's take on this point – but at the same time, I don't know what more could I expect from a book of this genre. "The Terror" is a brilliant book, but as I already mentioned, it was otherwise met with mixed feelings. Give it a try, though; I say it's worth it.

A perfect mark (five out of five):

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~ Trin ~

SF&F “Best Of” 2007 (the definite list!)

The staff at Locus Online has gathered several “best of” 2007 lists from various internet sources which they deemed referential – the lists that contain memorable science fiction, fantasy and horror releases of the past year; afterwards they counted the number of times that a certain book was mentioned and then composed their own “best of” list categorizing the novels according to the number of times they were mentioned. If you noticed, I keep bracketing the word best of, the meaning of me doing this will be disclosed soon enough. Now back to the topic at hand - The staff at Locus Online looks at the "best of" lists from some of the more widely popular sites that usualy aim for the interests of a more general public (Amazon.com, Publishers Weekly, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Library journal, Salon.com, New York times and Los Angeles Times), as well as at the lists of a few devoted genre blogs and other fan sites (SF Site, Bookgasm, Fantasy Magazine and Strange Horizons). You can look at the expanded version of the list here, but the stripped down version of the list that cites the most mentioned novels, is essentially as follows:

• J.K. Rowling - “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” (YA fantasy; mentioned on 8 lists)
• Ian McDonald - “Brasyl” (science fiction; mentioned on 7 lists)
• Michael Chabon - “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” (alternative history interwoven with various elements of the science fiction genre; mentioned on 6 lists)
• Dan Simmons - “The Terror” (horror; mentioned on 6 lists)
• Patrick Rothfuss - “The Name of the Wind” (epic fantasy; mentioned on 5 lists)
• Richard K. Morgan - “Thirteen”(GB title) / “Black Man”(USA title) (sf noir thriller; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Guy Gavriel Kay – “Ysabel” (contemporary YA fantasy; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Kay Kenyon - “Bright of the Sky” (sf; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Emma Bull - “Territory” (magical realism in the wild-west; mentioned on 3 lists) ...there is also an insigtful review at Jumpdrive and Cantrips

• David Anthony Durham – “Acacia: War With the Main” (epic fantasy; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Matt Ruff - “Bad Monkeys” (surreal story with a pinch of Philip K. Dick and David Lynch; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Shaun Tan - "The Arrival" (graphical novel with fantastic elements; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Robert Charles Wilson – “Axis” (sf; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Susan Palwick – “Shelter” (sf; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Kathleen Ann Goonan – “In War Times” (alternative history; mentioned on 3 lists)

• William Gibson – “Spook Country” (if it is a sf novel, then it would be a very dubious classification; mentioned on 3 lists)

This list, conveyed at Locus Online, presents a good balance between popular and quality genre prose, although it lacks many quality (as well as popular) releases of 2007. In my opinion, Locus Online’s source-pool should include more of the genre enthusiast blogs and fan sites (such as The Wertzone, OF Blog of The Fallen, Neth Space, Pat’s Fantasy Holist etc.) to provide a livelier and I believe more accurate list - these sites (blogs) are becoming more and more recognized among exceedingly aware and informed genre fans, as prominent opinion generators, spin-doctors and in some cases an extension of the book publishing PR and advertisement departments. There are just some titles and authors, which should have been mentioned at the top of their respective genres in the year of 2007.

A few days ago I’ve encountered another “Best f&sf of 2007” list, this one generated on Visions of Paradise. It partly copies the Locus Online “best of” list, but goes through the lists of some sites that weren’t accounted for at Locus (blog's author examines 20 different “best of” lists, some of them overlapping with the ones that Locus Online looked at), and his list turns out a bit more representative. The most notable titles missed by Locus Online are:

• Joe Abercrombie – “The Blade Itself” (epic fantasy; mentioned on 7 lists)
• Scott Lynch – “Red Seas Under Red Skies” (epic fantasy; mentioned on 6 lists)
• Alastair Reynolds – “The Perfect” (sf; mentioned on 6 lists)
• Charles Stross – “Halting State” (sf; mentioned on 6 lists)
• Mark J. Ferrari – “The Book Of Joby” (fantasy take on a biblical story; mentioned on 5 lists)
• Catherynne M. Valente – “The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin & Spice” (YA fantasy in the vein of 1001 Nights; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Peter F. Hamilton – “The Dreaming Void” (space opera; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Elizabeth Hand – “Generation Loss” (uncategorisable; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Nalo Hopkinson – “The New Moon’s Arms” (mainstream magical realism; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Jay Lake – “Mainspring” (high concept space opera; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Paul J. McAuley – “Cowboy Angels” (sf technothriller; mentioned on 4 lists)
• John Scalzi – “The Last Colony” (sf; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Karl Schroeder – “Queen of Candesce” (sf; mentioned on 4 lists)
• Lucius Shepard – “Sofspoken” (mentioned on 4 lists)
• Daniel Abraham – “A Betrayal In Winter” (epic fantasy; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Tobias Buckell – “Ragamuffin” (space opera; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Steven Erikson – “Reaper’s Gale” (epic fantasy; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Joe Haldeman – “The Accidental Time Machine” (hard sf; mentioned on 3 lists)
• John Crowley – “Endless Things” (alternative history; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Ken Macleod – “The Execution Channel” (sf; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Caitlin R. Kiernan – “Daughter of Hounds” (dark fantasy; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Susan Palwick – “Shelter” (near-future sf; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Terry Prattchet – “Making Money” (fantasy; mentioned on 3 lists)
• Kim Stanley Robinson – “Sixty Days and counting” (sf; mentioned on 3 lists)


Now this list a bit more “wholesome”, but since I don’t believe in any !definite! "best of" list, there should be a lot of novels, that were or were not mentioned on any of the lists I’ve had the time to look through, but are of a high enough quality to be mentioned - and these are:

“Pirate Freedom” (by Gene Wolfe), “The Fade” (by Chris Wooding), “Auralia’s Colors” (by Jeffrey Overstreet), “Un Lun Dun” (by China Mieville), “Rainbow’s End” – a Hugo award winner! (by Vernor Vinge), “Privilege of The Sword” – a Hugo nominee (by Ellen Kushner), “Wintersmith” (by Terry Prattchet), “Children of Húrin” (by J.R.R.Tolkien), “God’s Demon” (by Wayne Barlowe), “The Last Wish” (by Andrzej Sapkowski), “The Mirador” (by Sarah Monette), “Shadow Bridge” (by Gregory Frost), “Undertow” (by Elizabeth Bear) and “Thunderer” (by Felix Gilman).

I also wouldn’t be surprised if the following novels made it on the “best of” 2007 list: “Deadstock” - available free online version (by Jeffrey Thomas), “Fatal Revenant” (by Stephen R.Donaldson), “Mainspring” (by Jay Lake), “Mistborn: Well of Ascension” (by Brandon Sanderson), “The Metatemporal Detective” (by Michael Moorcock), “The Traitor” (by Michael Cisco), “His Majesty’s Dragon” – a Hugo nominee (by Naomi Novik), “The Court of the Air” (by Stephen Hunt), “The Inferior” (by Peadar O Guilin), or “Stealing Light” (by Gary Gibson).

All of the above mentioned titles are worthy of your attention, so go forth, acquire, read and then comment upon - I insist. If you think I’ve done some author or another a terrible injustice by not mentioning him/her please feel free to add them in your comments.