I Am Legend starts with two premises: Vampires are real, and Richard Neville is the last man left alive in a world of the undead. A classic of horror and science-fiction, with movies adaptations starring Charleton Heston and Will Smith, it doesn't live up to its reputation.

The first problem is with the horror. Maybe Neville's anguish at the death of the world was hot stuff in 1954, but the atmosphere hasn't aged well. I strongly hold to the theory that the undead map onto political ideologies, and vampires are about Conservative fears of exotic foreigners seducing and corrupting our virginal national bodily fluids (Liberal fear zombies--first being forced to turn against other individuals for survival and then becoming part of a horde of mindless consumers). The creatures of I Am Legend lack the seduction of the true vampire or the relentless pressure of the zombie horde. Neville is basically Robinson Crusoe, scavenging the suburbs for things to fortify his home.

The second problem is the science-fiction. "Evil spirits from hell" doesn't serve to explain why there are undead monsters anywhere, and I Am Legend invents a bacteria that gives all the classic traits of vampirism (drinking blood, fear of sunlight, garlic, religious iconography), but without much depth to it. Compared to say, Stross's The Rhesus Chart there's no science.

The one thing that does work is the final sting, on the meaning of the phrase "I am legend." There's some absurdity on spoilers for a 60 year old book with two movie adaptations, but the impact would be diminished if I talked about it. That's the only reason this gets three stars instead of two.