I have just finished reading I am Legend by Richard Matheson. I thoroughly enjoyed the book but a fact I learnt only when reading the afterword changed the entire way I viewed the book, and made me think so much better of it.
The book is set in the 1970s, with the year and date being written alongside the chapter headings for multiple chapters of the book. It felt like a 70s book, reminding me of the writing of Stephen King, William Peter Blatty, and other contemporaneous horror writers.
Only in the afterword (by Stephen King) did I read that the book was actually published in 1954, with the book being set in what was the near future of the mid 70s.
The fact that this book came out 20 years earlier than I thought changed it from a good example of the genre, to a trailblazing progenitor of the genre. The book absolutely shot up in my estimations knowing how ahead of the curve it was.
The language felt modern and readable, not at all stilted and pulpy. The themes explored internal struggles of a man trying to survive on his own, a war veteran who (whilst sticking very close to traditional gender roles) had become emotionally wrecked and mentally unstable as he struggled with the world around him and the atrocities it made him commit. It talked about his vulnerability and the love he had for his wife and daughter, how he cared for them both before and after their deaths
I have read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy/horror from the 50s-80s, and normally you can guess the decade from the first page, but this book surprised me. It was shocking to me how much my view of it changed upon learning when it was written.
Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Has learning a fact after reading a text has completely changed your view of it for the better or worse?
by lokiwhite