Richard Matheson

oh, i really like matheson! really enjoyed 'i am legend' - movie was okay (not the best adaptation), but the book was just so much better! i definitely have more of his books on my to-read list.
 
Just finishing Hell House and thoroughly enjoying it. Apart from that, the only others I've read are I Am Legend and The Shrinking Man. I must say, however, the more I read of Matheson, the more I like.

If I were to compare him to other writers - Christopher Priest for example- I love Priest's ideas and the way he comes at things from a slightly different slant. On the downside, I always feel that reading Priest is like fighting with the book - trying to get the tale to reveal itself. He always seems so haphazard and untidy in the way he structures his stories.

Matheson is (to me) a very tidy writer. His characters are well fleshed out and just right for story interaction. The structure is solid with a good foundation and (from what I've read so far) a rewarding and revelatory ending.

Everything has purpose. Nothing is wasted. He's my kind of writer:)
 
I would say that a fair amount of that is owing to his training in the pulp school, where such an emphasis was put on being able to pack a lot of information in a few words. Though he wasn't in on the big pulp scene, he -- like Ellison, Farmer, etc. -- did appear in them toward the end of that era; some of his work was even included in the final years of Weird Tales under Dorothy McIlwraith, for instance....
 
I read Hellhouse and I am Legend. Legend was awesome, read it in one sitting. I almost cried at one point...

Hellhouse was good but left me in a grey mood. It was great while I was reading it but the book seemed so joyless that it was difficult for me to reflect on it and give it a standing ovation.

Does that make any sense at all?

I love his short story the Duel.
 
I've never listened to "crickets" the same way every since I read the Richard Matheson short story about them.
 
As well as novels Matheson wrote some very good short stories!
Try "Shock!" vols. 1 to 4, "Third From The Sun" & The Shores Of Space"
 
I had to get I Am Legend from the library as it was out of print when I first tried to get it. Then, when I ordered the book, they sent me a comic book version! Finally it was reprinted and I could own it.
The idea is genius, especially the ending which none of the movie versions get right. The Price version was pretty close.

I also read Hell House (I prefer the movie he wrote, as it reduced some of the sub plots).
And a few of his short stories, like Prey.

His screenwriting work is equally impressive, having done a number of Twilight Zone and movies, including 2 Kolchak the Night Stalker tv movies. He was good at comedy too.

I notice a standard theme in his work (not his work for hire but personal projects) where a character who is an outsider or a neurotic achieves some peace by coming to terms with the source of the anxiety.
This is true of the Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, Prey, Hell House, and some others. I am not surprised he was into new agey holistic stuff later on because it is reflected in his early work too.

Probably the most important genre writer of the later half of the 20th century in terms of cultural impact and body of work in film and tv. Another writer who did not do as many but had a similar kind of mind bending "who is the real monster/technology vs the supernatural" approach was Nigel Kneale.
 
Like most people here, the only novel I've read by him is I Am Legend, but I'll probably explore more of his work soon. His short stories have a special place in my heart.
 
Guttersnipe said:
Like most people here, the only novel I've read by him is I Am Legend, but I'll probably explore more of his work soon. His short stories have a special place in my heart.
Click to expand...

The Twilight Zone epsides And when The Sky Opened was baed on his short story Disappearing act. He did the screenplay for the film Fall of the House of Usher staring Vincent Price.
 
I’ve just downloaded the Penguin book of Richard Matheson’s short stories. As a horror aficionado and writer, his name crops up a lot and I felt I should read his stuff.

I must admit I’m not that impressed. I like the ideas and stories but his prose can come across as amateur inasmuch as I think it must be the style has gone out of favour. But at times it reads so clunky - even child like.

I wonder, because so much of his material has been adapted or inspired tv and film that nowadays the impact of his original ideas is lessened.

I’ll carry on with the book because I’m enjoying the stories themselves.

pH
 
Last edited:
From what I've read of Matheson, his style was very mid-20th century, particularly mid-20th century sf/f/h. There was a belief expressed by some sf writers that prose should be as transparent as possible, which led to writing that was nearly journalistic. Against this mindset, there was Bradbury, Sturgeon to an extent, Pangborn to an extent, and Cordwainer Smith, with only Bradbury really developing a wide readership, though I don't think even the writers who professed the belief were always representative of it. Later writers in the '60s pretty much thumbed their collective nose at the belief (Ellison, Moorcock, Le Guin, etc.)

I think if you look at genre writing from the 1920s on, there was greater and greater influence from the Hemingways and Hammetts and those influenced by them, all of whom pared down their prose and believed in the "less is more" credo. Matheson is certainly pared to the bone and later writers like King in some of his best work and, maybe, Dennis Etchison did much the same, often to great effect.

Still, as you imply, there's a element of subjectivity involved, too. I grew up reading noir, hard-boiled, mid-20th century writing, so I'm used to it so while certain words and phrases may seem dated to me, the prose style doesn't strike me as out-dated. (Which, it occurs to me, might say something about my out-datedness.)

Randy M.

(Oops. Meant to add, yes, a lot of the ideas that Matheson put forward have either been dramatized directly or cribbed and reworked by later writers like King.)
 
Thanks @Randy M. I suspected as much. But it’s not so much his writing in omni (I’m a fan and enjoy the way omni works in horror) or style so much as the clumsiness of his prose.

I like poetic and wordy prose as well as brutal Hemingway-ism. Matheson just .... it feels ‘awkward’. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’ve been reading a Creepypasta!!!

I should add I have only read six of the stories so far. Also I should add I’m no spring chicken ;) so I’m possibly being thankless.

pH
 
I appreciate that Matheson wasn't wordy.
He didn't pad --when he adapted Hell House he took out some subplots which I think was smart.
Duel is online somewhere, I read that one finally.

He could be poetic when he felt like it-i.e. the last paragraph of I Am Legend, "the unassailable fortress of forever."
It's been said he also wrote many of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone monologues.
 
The conclusion of I Am Legend is for me what makes it such a great book, Neville's realisation that it's himself rather than the vampires/zombies who's the monster. It's almost unique in the genre novels I've read, Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To... is the only other I can think of with a similar "philosophy" (in that the protagonist doesn't eventually become a "hero" and prevail). Any others?
 
The Abominable Snowman by Nigel Kneale has a "who are the real monsters?" theme.
Maybe Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes as well.
 
I read I Am Legend a couple months ago and really liked it. I found it very suspenseful, but not especially scary. Planning on reading The Incredible Shrinking Man as well. Matheson was amazing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Toby Frost Black Man (aka Thirteen) by Richard Morgan Reviews & Interviews 3
Toby Frost The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson Reviews & Interviews 2
johnnyjet Richard Matheson Has Passed Away Obituaries 14
AE35Unit Hell House by Richard Matheson (1971) Reviews & Interviews 16
GOLLUM Richard C. Matheson Dystopia-Short Stories Book Discussion 4

Similar threads


Back
Top