Thursday, October 28, 2010

Call them reimaginings, retellings, alternative literature or historical horror. Classic literature or famous figures with a horrific something added to the story has become terrifically trendy. Not for literary purists. These books are geared to those of us who find the absurd hysterically humorous, and can easily imagine Abraham Lincoln planning the elimination of the undead to save the nation.







Thursday, October 14, 2010

"On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back." 
~ from I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Vampires, vampires, vampires! You've got Bram Stoker's Dracula, Anne Rice's Lestat, Sharon Drake's Carpathians, Bill from the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris, Edward and the whole Cullen clan who sprang forth from the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyers, and numerous others. They're sexy. They're cool. They may not drink blood, but they want to. And right now vampires and their undead friends are riding a big wave of popularity.

The vampires of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend may not be pretty, but they are downright scary. Written in 1954, the story takes place in the future 1976. Robert Neville is quite sure that after a horrible plague, he is the last living man on earth. But he is not the only moving creature. The plague has left behind monsters, bloodthirsty vampires who fear and hate Neville for being different, and at night they attempt to attack and destroy him. Although he quests for the cause and a cure for the vampire virus, Neville is forced to realize he is the only member left of the "old race". Recommended for thrills, chills and plain good writing.