'I Am Legend' is quite unusual for its time. I just wanted to write a story about female boxers, and I couldn't get that going in my mind. I don't know exactly where the idea of just a man pitting himself against a robot boxer came from.
— Richard Matheson
I wrote about real people and real circumstances and real neighborhoods. There was no crypt or castles or H.P. Lovecraft-type environments. They were just about normal people who had something bizarre happening to them in the neighborhood.
I think we're yearning for something beyond the every day. And I will tell you I don't believe in the supernatural, I believe in the supernormal.
I had to write about realistic circumstances. That's the way my brain works. And I think that gave me a sort of place in the field.
To me there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it's only because we haven't been able to understand it yet.
I could never write about strange kingdoms. I could never do 'Harry Potter' or anything like that. Even when I did science-fiction, I didn't write about foreign planets and distant futures. I certainly never did fantasies about trolls living under bridges.
