Richard Matheson died in 2013, and the literary landscape is poorer for having lost him. The volume of Matheson’s output was matched only by its quality, and its safe to say that every fantasy, science fiction, or horror writer alive today was influenced by him. He was awarded the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1984; the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991; was given the title of Grand Master of Horror in 1993; and in 2010 was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Today would have seen Matheson turn 91, so I thought it as good a time as any to suggest some reading, if you haven’t had the pleasure.
I Am Legend (1954) – Matheson’s crowning achievement, and the book he is most known for today. It’s been adapted into three separate films: The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price; The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston; and I Am Legend, starring Will Smith (you could also arguably include “The Homega Man,” from The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VIII). Oddly enough, it’s the Smith version that’s the best (due in no small part to Smith’s frankly excellent performance), but no film version has come close to the stark, unvarnished horror of Matheson’s prose. The Omega Man turned the story into a campy joke, with Heston playing chess opposite a bust of Beethoven, and the Smith film turned everyman Robert Neville into a military badass with a Mustang and an AR-15. I Am Legend, the book, finds horror in the mundanity of Neville’s life; every day he drives around southern California, killing vampires in their sleep, and every night he tries in vain to sleep amid the chorus of ghouls outside his home, trying to goad him out. It’s a novel that never loses its luster after even the third or fourth read, and if you only read one Matheson book in your lifetime, make it I Am Legend.
A Stir of Echoes (1958) – Adapted by director David Koepp in 1999 into a film that was more confrontationally dark than scary, A Stir of Echoes is one of the best examples I can think for skipping a film and going straight to the book. Not only does Koepp’s adaptation stray too much from its excellent source material, but Matheson’s story is just so much scarier, and Tom Wallace’s horrific revelation plays so much better on the page. I will say, though, that Kevin Bacon is pretty perfect casting for Wallace; get someone like mark Romanek or David Cronenberg to take a crack at this, and we could have a new horror classic on our hands.
The Twilight Zone – Matheson wrote over a dozen episodes of Rod Serling’s seminal anthology show, including classics like “Little Girl Lost,” “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” “Button, Button” (re-adapted in 2009 as The Box), and “Steel” (re-adapted in 2011 as Real Steel). Many of them were based on his own short stories, so not only did Matheson write classic literature, but his voice helped shape what is still the high-water mark for anthology shows. The Twilight Zone, and American television, would not have been the same without him. (GAMbIT bonus: Blastr has this handy page with a lot of Matheson embedded straight from Hulu. Take some time out of your day and treat yourself.)
What Dreams May Come (1978) – Ignore the Robin Williams version, unless you’re into that sorta thing, I guess. Matheson’s surreal, beautiful novel does such a better job of showing the depth of his protagonist Chris Nielsen’s love for his wife, and the lengths he’ll go to to be with her. Matheson even considered it his most important book, saying that “It has caused a number of readers to lose their fear of death.” One of his few works outside of the field of horror, Dreams is as essential a read as anything else he wrote.
Those, I’d say are his most notable achievements, but to be honest I haven’t even come close to reading everything the man wrote. Look at his Wikipedia page and you’ll understand why. I don’t know if anything comes after this life, but I know wherever he is, Matheson is still writing.
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