R.I.P. Richard Matheson

[Calidore]

I don't hear his name much now, but Matheson was a prolific SF/fantasy/horror author with a number of classic credits to his name, including the novels I Am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man, plus numerous Twilight Zone episodes and dozens of short stories. As with many prolific authors, not all of his work is great, or even good, but his hit-to-miss is up there with Fredric Brown and Ray Bradbury.

[coeus]

I'm sad to hear it. I Am Legend is one of my favorite novels of all time. Hollywood should be ashamed of what they did to the story in the multiple attempts at filming it. A few years ago I was given the complete Twilight Zone series, and every time I saw "Written by Richard Matheson" on the screen, I couldn't wait to see what would happen. Matheson at his best was as good as anyone out there.

Rest in Peace.

[AuntShecky]

The story for the relatively recent movie,The Box was based on Matheson's short story "Who's Got the Button," in which a couple has the chance to come into a vast fortune, but if they accept it, some stranger must die. In a subtle and interesting way, the Kafkaesque story presents an existential moral dilemma, the consequences of making moral choices. That was originally a Twilight Zone episode. Rod Serling's creation was unique in the era when it first aired-- there was nothing else like it on TV. Looking back on the series now, it was awfully moralistic and pedantic, but otherwise intelligently written and thought-provoking.

Another SF writer similar to Matheson was Philip K. Dick. One of his stories, A Scanner Darkly, is a very bizarre but extremely interesting animated (!) movie. Of course, everybody raises a torch to filmdom's Blade Runner, based on Phillip K. Dick's original work, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? The story for Schwartzenegger's blockbuster, Total Recall was derived from We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. Terrific titles, huh? I was quite taken with both the premise and the execution of one of Dick's stories in The Adjustment Bureau.

Matheson, Dick, Bradbury-- they were America's Big Three, the best science fiction authors of their generation. Now they, along with Serling, are all gone-maybe to the great galaxy in the sky, if not the Twilight Zone itself.

[Lokasenna]

I found I Am Legend to be a very powerful novel. I'm sorry to hear that he is dead, though I must admit to being slightly surprised that he wasn't dead already. As you say, he hadn't done much for a while.