cavalary's reviews
269 reviews

Looked at it because it promised vampires. Of course, my definition of vampire being Anne Rice's, it didn't offer quite that, but then again I didn't expect it to either.
"I Am Legend" is odd for horror. Normally horror has absolutely no point, leaves you with exactly nothing except maybe a little shaking and a few nightmares, which is why I don't read it. This is different. It has a message, and the end is worth everything...
The ten short stories that follow it in the book are rather regular horror. No message, and sometimes not even scary... So I will have to say I'd give "I Am Legend" an 8, but "officially" I have to rate the whole book, so...

Wanted something to read in a day and picked this one up. Thought that the stories might be a bit better than what you usually find in anthologies, since they're a bit longer, but I was wrong.
A few interesting bits, but the overall impression was bad.

First book I read by Andre Norton was "The Hands of Lyr" and this is certainly an improvement over it, but still, when I see fantasy I expect a high fantasy epic, as in a whole array of creatures (if they're the familiar elf, orc, dwarf, halfling, dragon, unicorn, centaur, etc. lot all the better, but I could get used with others if they were detailed well enough), a lot of magic and a broad perspective, with several main characters and countless others doing many things in many places.
That said, it was nice, but not what I want to read when it comes to fantasy.

In many places it simply looks as the fable version of "1984", but lacking the greatness of the third part of "1984". That wonderfully written, and very scary, brainwashing from "1984" is showed very lightly and casually here.
Overall, it was very interesting, and also very bold, when it was written and it is still interesting now. Good, but, if you ask me, it's not really that great.

Liked a few, disliked a few, was neutral to others...
On the good side overall, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Compared to the rest, the story is predictable and lacks that greatness that The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned had, but it does have great moments. The discussions with David and Gretchen and those two "increasing the amount of light in the universe" moments with the candles; for some reason I just loved those images.
When Lestat says in that tiny chapter 32 that the book should have ended at the end of chapter 31, and that you might wish to stop reading there anyway, since if you read chapter 33 you might wish you hadn't... Believe him; I wish I hadn't read it.
Great book anyway.

Maybe good for a basic background of a game, maybe also good for reading, but... Something seems unbalanced. The first half of the book didn't seem to be heading anywhere, then everything just happens way too fast in the second half. Magic users way too powerful, fighters way too dumb, though the thieves were nice, and twists that were way too strained. Going out of your way to make things seem impossible and then "forgetting" a problem or putting characters in the middle of the action out of the blue to do things that the main characters couldn't...

Spoiler

Did anyone else notice that the sorceress is no longer harmed when casting spells during that battle for the stone even before she gets the stone? And who or what was that thing that helped them after that fight, where did he come from and why did he do what he did? That guy's appearance is just all too convenient...

Quite good enough, but too forced somehow.

It didn't seem like much in the beginning, but develops very nicely later on. Very good overall, and an interesting "what happens after we die" too, even though I tend to not agree with that theory.

Simply amazing. Also, sheds a new light on The Vampire Lestat.

Compared with The Vampire Lestat or The Queen of the Damned? Poor.
Taken by itself? Good enough.
The first part is awful, but, as soon as Louis forgets about Daniel, or Daniel stops being so afraid, and actually starts telling his story, things get a lot better. Reading Lestat first and knowing the general idea of things and how things would eventually end and seeing the movie some years ago certainly didn't make reading this book more captivating, so my judgement could be a little off because of that.
Now since I read the other two first, Louis' description of Lestat made me frown several times. Maybe if I would have read them in the right order, things would have been the other way around.
Good foundation for the series anyway.