Things I didn't know going in: I Am Legend was written in the 50s and became the blueprint for vampire and zombie stories thereon out.

And rightfully so. It's bleakness and creepiness is suffocating. Our narrator is all alone, mourning his wife, his daughter, all of humanity. Mourning the people he knew who now show up outside his house in order to coax him out and drink his blood. Mourning the person he could have been. Angry too, at any sign of false hope that makes him hope again. While gruesome details are there, the real horror lies in the narrators loneliness and impending madness.

And, between the tone used by the audiobook voice actor and the narrator's precise vocabulary, the story sounds as if it were narrated by Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons which ads a certain delightful je ne sais quoi.

The other stories differ in settings but often converge around madness. There's a few familiar themes: a woman who needs to kill an evil creepy murder doll, a man whose anger at his wife leaving him becomes his downfall, and creepy little girls with telekinetic abilities. Vampires arrange their own funerals and corpses dance. While nothing exceptional, I overall enjoyed these stories and they were lovely to listen to in October.

5 stars for I Am Legend, rounded down for the remaining short stories which were good but occasionally forgettable. Recommended if you love post apocalyptic fiction, enjoy a more classic style of horror writing (think Ray Bradbury), and are ready for pure bleakness.

More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/N13GyePhEvk