I Am Legend / Hell House
Richard Matheson
Paperback
(Orb: Tom Doherty Associates, March 15, 1997)
Stories include... I Am Legend • Buried Talents • The Near Departed • Prey • Witch War • Dance of the Dead • Dress of White Silk • Mad House • The Funeral • From Shadowed Places • Person to Person *** Robert Neville is the last surviving human on earth, but he is not alone. An apocalyptic plague has infected every man, woman and child, changing them into blood-crazed, rampaging vampires-and they're all out for his blood. A hunter by day, he hides away in his house at night, determined to survive their attacks. But a new strain of vampire is evolving, committed to creating a new world, and to them, Neville is every bit as frightening as they are to him. Inspired by Dracula, Matheson turned the traditional vampire legend on its head, attempting to explain undead phenomena by scientific means, and making I Am Legend a moving treatise on loneliness and conformity. *** Physicist Lionel Barrett and Edith, his loyal but repressed wife. Beautiful Spiritualist Florence Tanner. Cynical psychic Ben Fischer. Hired by a dying magnate to determine if life survives death, they must spend one week in the notorious Hell House. Boarded up for thirty years, the old Belasco mansion witnessed scenes of almost unimaginable horror and depravity. Two previous attempts to exorcise the house ended in disaster. Battling inner demons of their own, Barrett and his companions each have secret reasons for daring the house, and each refuses to leave until its mystery is solved. But can any soul survive the torments and temptations within the most haunted house on Earth? Also contains 10 short stories, including "Prey," basis of the film short, Amelia, in the TV movie Trilogy of Terror. Softcover. (301 pp.) 1951-1989.