Book review in one tweet

Last man on Earth fights monsters. Becomes monster. Makes long, boring explanations about monsters. #NotTheWillSmithMovie

Favorite quote

He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautifully ugly dog.

Review

My copy of I Am Legend has a giant red sticker on it that tells me the book is "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING WILL SMITH." It should probably say something like "NOW LENDING ITS NAME TO A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING WILL SMITH."

Actually, it should probably say something not in all-caps. My point is, these two stories are very different, and whatever your experience of the movie, you'll probably have a totally different experience reading the book.

The basic premise is the same; most of the people in the world have either been killed by a deadly infection or transformed into some form of bloodsucking humanity. One guy, Robert Neville, is left alone, trying not to get eaten and carrying the torch for non-bloodsucking humanity. In the movie, the bloodsuckers are called "Darkseekers," which is basically just a way for the movie to have scary half-humans that are kind of like vampires and kind of like zombies and definitely avoid the long mythology behind both of those creepy creatures that might complicate our experience of watching Will Smith hunt deer.

The bloodsuckers in Matheson's book are straight up vampires - garlic-hating, mirror-hating, religious-symbol-hating vampires. Matheson doesn't shy away from the mythology at all. In fact, he spends most of the book trying to find scientific explanations for the mythology. Vampirism is caused by a facultative saprophyte (a bacteria basically), garlic is an allergen causing anaphylaxis, fear of crosses is "psychological."

Essentially the book tries to make everything deep and interesting about vampires as boring and technical as possible. I found myself losing interest, wanting to hear more about Robert's former family or the dog than his experiments with vampire bloodletting in an artificial vacuum. Horror and fantasy are supposed to places where we explore what we don't understand about our lives. They use a deep (caution: English-major word approaching) symbology to explore our non-rational side. All that power is lost the moment you start talking about facultative saprophytes.

Nerd rating

4 wizard staffs (out of 10)

The most intriguing part of this book is the way it plays with ideas of monstrosity and normalcy. Basically it asks whether "monster" is a relative term. If everyone in the world is a monster, does that make the monsters "normal" and the "normal" hero a monster? It's an interesting question, but not something I couldn't get from multiple Twilight Zone episodes.

Non-nerd rating

4 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

The book is better than the movie, but neither of them are that great. And the book doesn't have Will Smith hunting deer.

Jordan Jeffers always wants a beer after writing these reviews. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Peace.

Book review in one tweet

I fought at the Last Battle and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. #epicfantasy #12thousandpageslater #totallyworthit

Favorite quote

He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone.

Review

The Wheel of Time turns, fourteen books come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, then disappears altogether by the time the last book comes out, and some character you don't remember from The Shadow Rising makes an appearance and does something important, and you're like, "Wait, who is this person? I am not rereading the whole series again."

So then you spend twenty minutes on the Dragonmount forums trying to figure it out, but then some jerk reveals that [name of main character] dies so you spend another twenty minutes typing up a biting, sarcastic response chastising the person who posted that information in a non-spoiler section of the website, but you get bored and go back to reading and it turns out they were just messing with you, but then [insert second main character's name] actually dies, and you try really hard not to cry, but darn it you've been reading these books for nearly twenty years, and who cares if the sneezy guy at the doctor's office is giving you a weird look? It's not like you're going to see him ever again.

I guessing that if you've read A Memory of Light, you probably had an experience like this. Robert Jordan's final book in the epic(ally long) fantasy series The Wheel of Time brings the story of Rand al'Thor and the Dark One to a satisfying ending, if a bit bittersweet. The series started back in the early 1990s, survived Hurricane Andrew, the Star Wars prequels, and even the premature passing of Robert Jordan in 2007. The last three books have been completed by Brandon Sanderson, using extensive notes and scenes that Jordan finished before his death.

This book is the culmination of twenty years and 11,000 pages of work, and as much as its possible for anything to live up to that kind of hype, A Memory of Light does. There's a chapter in here called "The Last Battle," that is over 200 pages long. Just that one chapter. I bet you can't guess what it's about.

Nerd book rating

9 wizard staffs (out of 10)

If you're a nerd and you haven't read the Wheel of Time, you're wasting time reading this review. Trust me, you'll need all the time you can get.

Non-nerd book rating

1 cold, frosty beer (out of 10)

Not for normal people.

Jordan Jeffers encourages you to punch him in the face if when he writes a book series that's 12,000 pages long. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Peace.