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Episode 589 - I Am Legend - Part 4 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-03-24 16:00:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

We're closing the coffin door on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend - climb in!

Special thanks to reader Erik Peabody of Viking Guitar Productions

Cosplay your own vampire siege with these Nosferatu Figurines by Cryptocurium

Enjoy our playlist of classical music from the novel on Spotify or YouTube

Next week: Comments and a Bonus Ep on Vampire Flicks!

Comments

Cole Caron

Chad, how often do you think about ripping off a person’s jaw and stabbing them with it? I understand your point, but I don’t relate to the example at all. I do wish more mind-reading in fiction addressed intrusive thoughts! Sometimes telepathy is written in ways that make the characters being read seem paper-thin. When your telepath can look directly into the brains of their supporting cast members you need to work much harder to portray those people as more than set-dressing.

Jason Thompson

This is one of those examples where the originator of the genre — basically the whole modern zombie genre— critiques itself, while most of the imitators that came after just stuck with the first 3/4 of the book, the “last man on earth adventures” survivalist part. It’s fun to shoot zombies and barricade your house! It’s less fun to find out that you became so numbed by violence you were killing people who could have been cured the whole time. (Actually, I’m not sure if the book says they could have been cured — but at least, you find out that your macho loner violence was ultimately a dead end.) Whoops!

Rick Hound

I feel that the author of the Trinity Blood series,Sunao Yoshida, bases his vampires on I am Legend based on specific details of how the vampires’ society behaves in response to the new world and the old order of humans and the speculation of their biology. In the TB universe, vampires or Methuselahs are the secondary species of humans on a post apocalyptic world. Details of how they came about when colonists on Mars came into contact with an alien bacterium that made them adverse to intense sunlight and silver and the reason they take blood is because of that the bacterium feeds off the host’s own blood so they have to keep a balance by taking others blood, silver and intense sunlight being poisonous to the bacterium which then makes it eat away at the host. What’s also interesting to the two stories show that Methuselahs are not completely monstrous but just a branch of humanity adapting to something alien. Sometimes making them more human than the “normal” humanity.

Tommy Smith

Loved your coverage of this classic. One of my all time favourite novels for sure. Way ahead of its time and still so relevant in so many ways.

Lex Lata

My wife and I stopped by our neighborhood used book store today, and it just happened to have a copy of the I Am Legend graphic novel mentioned last episode. Coincidence? Or proof that the world does, in fact, revolve around Chris Lackey?

ChiveOnOCM

Great chat on the mental state of the character after 3 years. Also who is on Chad’s “hugging & kissing - murder” list?

DR

Will their new society eventually make horror films with Nevill as the monster?

Forrest Rush

An excellent series of eps on an absolutely stupdendous novel. Thanks for doing this one guys. So now what do we all think this Will Smith sequel is possibly going to be about? Maybe they restart the internet and get all the vamps hooked on TikTok? Makes about as much sense as anything else I've heard.

Jack Saul

Ive been listen to the BBC radio series on Nuremburg, and the pills Neville takes at the end as the crowd waits outside really reminded me of the phenomenon of very high ranking Nazis killing themselves with cyanide before they could face trial. Considering when the book was written, and its interest in cold war apocalypse, there is something in thinking in vamp society as being one that views Neville like Hitler, but which is about to enter a whole new age of strife born out of its solutions to the problems it faced. The vampire apocalypse and Neville were their world war 2, but life in their pill dependent society ruled over by a razor pike weilding military caste will be their cold war

Michael-Paul Schallmo

When Neville's rape thoughts came up in your discussion, I automatically got a bit nervous, because it's such a difficult topic. I don't want to defend or excuse those thoughts, but I do think they are worth discussing, so I appreciate that you two chose to address it. Thinking about it further, I wonder if Matheson presents those intrusive rape thoughts as another way to ask the reader to confront the fact that this character IS a monster. It's clear throughout the book that he is a violent man. These thoughts are another example of his capacity for violence. To me, the author seems to be trying to put the reader into an emotional conflict by attempting to build sympathy for this monstrous character. In that way, it seems sort of similar to Lovecraft's "sympathy for the devil" idea that you discussed recently on the Werewolf of Ponkert shows.

Avlin Starfall

I am so glad I listened to the audiobook of this story while you all were covering it. One of the things I found very interesting, and maybe it's just my interpretation of it but it was when Neville was talking about wanting a companion and how he didn't care if they were a man or woman and that when social dogma has been removed it really doesn't matter who you are with. I thought that was a very interesting because at this time of course being gay was illegal and everything but here he is saying that such thoughts are a socially made up thing. Maybe I am wrong as I don't know the authors views other than what was said in the first episode but that's what I thought when I heard it.

Aaron La Vene

That moment you mistake the aliens from War Of The Worlds with the aliens from Signs. *shakes head in disappointment* But besides that, this is one of the greatest stories I think you guys have covered and you did it so well. I do not know if I would have considered all of the philosophical takes that you presented when discussing the characters mindsets and motivations. These 4 episodes have been some of your best which says a ton after how long I’ve been listening. (nothing beats day of the dragons though). You guys still remain the best podcast and I always get excited when I get that Patreon notification (new comment episode to listen to tonight for instance!)

LUNCHBOX

Really enjoyed the heck out of this month. Rereading this story for the first time in years with the accompanying Spotify playlist in the background was a really nice immersive experience. Thanks!

Forrest Rush

I really want to repeat what I wrote rather flippantly earlier and second what so many have said here that your coverage of I am Legend has just been a delight. I like all that you guys do even when the tales haven't been exactly been my cup of unspeakable elidritch goop, as it's always good to hear about things I would probably never read or never even come across, but this has just been a perfect storm of reader and thought-provoking insight and of course that Chad/Chris unique humour that never fails all about one of my favorite books. Thanks again guys.

Falconhoof

Glad to hear 'what women want' finally getting a mention on the podcast. Definitely an under-appreciated gem of the weird fiction genre. Few works have given me the same sense of hopelessness and existential dread.

Professor Murder

I have been following HPPodcraft for over a decade now, and I was very pleased to see you diving into “I am Legend”, my favorite vampire tale of all time. I used it as part of my MA dissertation, “Duality in Horror.” Why do we create monsters? We want there to be something worse than ourselves. What is best about a great story is how returning to it with the benefit of a new perspective, like your episode, can reveal something new. As the inheritor vampires are killing their way through the feral vampires outside his house, Neville is taken aback at their efficiency and the visible pleasure they take in killing. But as you pointed out, it’s very possible that they learned how to kill so effectively from Neville and his observations on how stakes worked. His actions had made the monsters more monstrous. I also appreciate how the horror of the story can be said to examine the fear of life becoming habitual. What exactly does Neville keep living for, stubbornly? It’s chilling that he can find some peace in death only when he accepts that, like a vampire, he has become immortal, “a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.”

Jim Cannon

What a twist! This blew my mind the when I read it, years ago. I really was not expecting that ending, though the clues were scattered all along. Just a brilliant book. Economic, efficient, thought provoking and genre defining. Good job, guys.

Christine Durrill

My kid and I discussed the idea of the horrific becoming normal the other day. For example what of zombies were real? After a while, living humans might adapt to them and you’d see the elderly sitting in the park throwing raw chicken guts to the zombies same as popcorn to pigeons and Animal Control routinely rounding up stray zombies alongside unwanted cats and dogs. Humans adapt.

Thomas Paynter

For me the sudden 5th act conversion of the vampires into a new civilization is unearned. Until Ruth shows up we have no hint that even the living vampires are capable of anything but lusting for blood. It's as if the 5th act only occurred to Matheson is he wrote and then he didn't go back and revise to make it fit, or that was his original idea but he got sidetracked along the way with all the cool survival-horror stuff. So for me the big idea of this story as embodied in the title is the worst part of it, and the film adaptations are right to leave it out. That was my opinion when I read it; I was curious whether the pod would change my mind, but no.

Eldritch Golem (JPM)

Considering Chad's fixation on the lude gyrating vampire women throughout this story I think if you guys decide to come back to Matheson for a future episode you absolutely must read his short story "Dance of the Dead" (1954).

E. Twan Crawford

One of my all time favorites from Matheson, but Hell House is my number one. Legend is a classic, first time I read it back in the 80’s I read it straight through one Saturday, couldn’t put it down. I’m currently reading “Richard Matheson Collected Stories Volume 1”, and almost all the women in his stories are named Ruth, which was also his wife’s name, Ruth Ann.

Innsmouth Gold

Thanks for a great March for Draculas, I always loved this book! I imagine Matheson is rivalled only by Bloch in terms of output and influence.

Peter Larsen

As usual, I am always here for the unspeakable glimpses into Chad's inner life. In this case, killing a gum-chewer with their own jaw.

Peter Larsen

More seriously, I read this decades ago, and very little of it stuck with me beyond that last scene with him staring down at the crowd, realizing that, for them, he was the unspeakable monster that hid in the shadows and preyed on them. It's very powerful, although, as an older and somewhat wiser reader, I wonder why the "recovered vampires" didn't try to make contact sooner. I mean, it would be hard to rehabilitate him, and maybe having a "normal person" around would be a temptation too far, but.... I totally agree with Chris that none of the films have really done the book justice, although the hairstyles in The Omega Man filled me with a nebulous horror when I was a child, but that was the 70s.

Michael Littlefield

I really enjoyed your dive into "I Am Legend". I am surprised that you didn't mention that this novel was chosen to be the recipient of the Horror Writer's Association special Vampire Novel of the Century Award, beating out Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" and Anne Rice's "Interveiw with the Vampire." Stephen King himself said that without "I Am Legend" there would probably be no "Salem's Lot." I am glad that you talked about how Neville is enjoying the cat and mouse games he has with Cortman. I suspect that Neville knows where Cortman hides, but he chooses not to go and take Cortman out because Cortman's nightly visits gives him some level of excitement and meaning. I originally agreed that the scenes of Neville and Ruth were a weak point in an otherwise great novel. However, with this recent re-read I felt that since Ruth kissed Neville after he told her what happened to him that it's more out of pity than anything else. She has gotten to know the monster and she finds him rather pathetic and to be pitied, like a suffering old animal. I can't help but reflect on those last three words in the novel: "I am legend." In many ways Robert Neville will become the new boogeyman, whose name will be used to frighten little vamps into behaving, and perhaps vampire cults will spring up with him as either a figure of worship or revulsion. I can imagine a vampire mother telling her child that if they don't eat their blood-soaked spinach then Robert Neville will come for them during the day.