Garlic, Germs, and Good Vibes: Unpacking I Am Legend

TJ Blackwell: 00:01:15

Born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am Legend today. This is a part of all reading counts. We're doing all reading counts. Novellas. We had some options. The people voted.

They want to hear us talk about I Am Legend. So we are. It is the. The ideal novellas, some say the perfect novella. Probably at least one person. I'm TJ Blackwell.

I'm here with the one and only, the beautiful Andy Walsh. How are you doing today?

Andy Walsh: 00:01:47

I am doing well. Thank you for that kind introduction. How are you, tj?

TJ Blackwell: 00:01:51

I'm good. I'm good as well. Thanks for asking. So what's the last literature that you consumed? What form was that in?

Andy Walsh: 00:01:59

Well, I mean, I literally just finished reading this book a day ago, so probably that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:07

I love asking that question for these because usually it's like this. Like I was getting ready to record this.

Andy Walsh: 00:02:13

I just read this. I mean, I read a couple of comic books on Marvel Unlimited.

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:18

Yeah, yeah, that counts. That counts as reading.

Andy Walsh: 00:02:20

Yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:22

For me it was actually.

Andy Walsh: 00:02:23

I.

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:24

So I read I Am Legend.

And then just because like I had the tab open already, I was like, man, I should read some Ray Bradbury stories while I'm, you know, while I'm like in the realm. So short story for me, but you know, if you're listening, please rate review the show. It means the world to us.

It is the easiest, best way to help us out. It boosts us in the algorithm. It's awesome. It's awesome.

And we want to give a special shout out to Jeannie Mattingly for supporting us with her wallet. That means just as much and helps a little bit more just because it helps us, you know, pay to record and stuff. So thank you, Genie. We love Eugenie.

And you can get your own shout out if you would, you know, support the show for $5 a month on 4th wall, you can take a look at our merch. You can leave a one time gift.

Andy Walsh: 00:03:15

Check it out.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:15

Fourth wall is great. You can get our all reading counts merch. If you're watching this, Andy's wearing it right now. He's got like the nice forest green or emerald green.

I don't remember the name of the green, but it's a really nice shirt. They're pretty comfy. I love them. I wear comfort color shirts all the time. And if you do go support us any merch that is all reading counts.

Bonus questions, donations even mark all reading counts. They go to supporting local libraries. So if that's something you're Passionate about.

There's a way you can, you know, get two birds with one stone there. So if it's your first time listening to one of these.

When we say all reading counts, what we mean is if you are consuming literature in some way, shape or form, any way, shape or form that counts as reading. And we started this because people tend to be a little critical of the audiobook enjoyer. We think that's ridiculous.

If I read War and Peace and Andy listened to War and Peace, the only real difference is going to be that my eyes are going to be a lot more tired at the end of it. So that's really what we mean. And we really are proponents of literacy. Illiteracy rates are climbing in our country across the board.

And reading I find to be super beneficial. It helps me center myself. I am like, as a younger guy, it's pretty easy for me to just put the book down, not pick it back up.

So, like, forcing myself to get, you know, pick up a book and finish it actually has helped me focus a lot more on other things, that kind of thing. Any brain rotted listeners out there, read a short story to completion. It'll help, I promise.

So today we're talking about why it counts to read novellas. And we are specifically covering I Am Legend because it is legendary might be the most adapted novella of all time.

I didn't know that before we started, you know, planning this episode. It's three technically sort of four movie adaptations of this one novella.

ably Will Smith's I am legend: 2007

Andy Walsh: 00:05:42

I don't know. I think that has popped up in my awareness at some point. Yes. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:48

So I kind of can't wait to see what that is. But before we get into I Am Legend, I'm gonna talk about a novella.

So novella, typically, as described by the American science and fiction literature.

Andy Walsh: 00:06:02

Oh, what is their.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:03

What is their final title? Something like that. One of the organizations that determines these types of things says a novella is in between 17,000 and 40,000 words.

Typically if it's 250 words a page, that's gonna be 60 to 170 pages. So we're sitting right there at a solid like 27 ish thousand words for I Am Legend. We're right in the sweet spot as far as I'm concerned. It is Weird.

If you go pick up a copy of I Am Legend or if you want to, you know what. So what, Andy, what happened to you when we said, yeah, let's read I Am Legend?

Andy Walsh: 00:06:38

Well, I just wanted to make sure I was reading the same thing that everybody else was because I. One of our mutual friends pointed out that there were different editions with very different lengths.

So I didn't want to read something that was only half of the story or read a whole bunch of things, read something that was longer, and then be talking about stuff that everybody else is going, what is that's not in the story. You're making things up.

And so I want to make sure I was reading the right thing and didn't get a definitive answer on how to tell what I was looking for. So I finally just went to the library and. And discovered that there are print editions of I Am Legend that are titled I Am Legend.

But when you open them up, they are in fact I Am Legend and Other Stories, which is also the title of a volume that you can purchase. But apparently somewhere along the line somebody went, people don't buy something with and other stories in the title.

They will buy it if it is just called I Am Legend. They want to buy the book that goes with the movie that they saw with Will Smith in it. And so they put Will Smith on the COVID of this book.

They called it I Am Legend.

And then to make you feel like you're getting your money's worth and to make it 300 some odd pages long instead of 170 pages long, they put, I think it's eight other short stories by Matheson as well in the back there. And so you can look at it as bonus reading. You can look at it as pages that made this copy of I Am Legend more expensive than it needed to be.

You can look at it however you see, you feel the need to. But it turns out there's really only one version of the text. It is just packaged in very different ways.

TJ Blackwell: 00:08:14

Yeah, because I didn't know how to answer that question. I was like, I have no clue. I read most things I read online these days. Like, I just look it up and if I have to buy it, I buy it.

And then I just read it. I had no clue. But that's just the kind of thing that happens when you're trying to read a short story by an author from like 70 years ago.

They feel like no one wants to pay for, you know, 90, 60, 40 pages of story, so they just bundle it in with a bunch of other things. I think it's fun, you know, it's nice to end up with some extra stuff to read.

I like that because instead of finishing the book and then thinking, man, what do I do now? You just keep going.

So personally, I'm a fan, but Andy, do you have any previous history with Robert Matheson and what previously was your exposure to I Am Legend?

Andy Walsh: 00:09:06

As you can probably guess, I had not read the book previously and that's why I had such basic questions about how to paint it. Yeah, I. I was aware of the book and aware of the story, but I had not read it. I have not seen any of the adaptations that have been mentioned.

So I came into this completely. Well, not completely cold just from living in the world.

I knew a few things about the story because having heard people talk about the movie, so I was not completely unaware of it. And I've obviously interacted with things that derive from it or that were influenced from it. And so to me, it kind of falls into that hole that.

What was the name of that movie, the John Carter of Mars film fell into a few years ago, where everybody who knows such things or as a student of such things, goes, oh, John Carter of Mars, very influential science fiction novel from many years ago.

But when you see it in: 2012

It's hard to appreciate what I gather to be fairly original features of it because it has so strongly influenced most zombie and vampire things that have come since.

TJ Blackwell: 00:10:41

eresting going back to just a: 1954

Andy Walsh: 00:10:50

Cool.

TJ Blackwell: 00:10:51

And if you want to talk about range, Edgar Rice Burroughs writing Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, sure. That's crazy. That's insane. That's. That's a real author. But do you want to. Can you summarize I Am Legend for us really quick? And then we'll.

We'll start breaking it down and dissecting Robert Neville and the, you know, the literature as a whole.

Andy Walsh: 00:11:15

Sure. How spoilery are we comfortable being with a 70 year old novella?

TJ Blackwell: 00:11:21

It is 71 years old. If you didn't read it or watch any of the movies at this point, you lost your chance. If you're gonna listen.

Andy Walsh: 00:11:29

Yeah, but you know, sympathy for me, because I was a newbie as of three Days ago. So, yeah, I am. Legend is the story of Robert Neville, the apparently last. Last human, last living. The nomenclature is a little bit tricky.

Survivor on earth of a bacterial infection that has turned people into vampires. And so he lives alone in his house, which he has fortified to keep out the, the vampires. And his daily routine is just.

And by day, maintaining his house, finding food, maintaining all the things that he needs to keep going, his car and so forth. And by night you're waiting out a vampire, not exactly assault, but just sort of vampire taunting and so forth out in the streets.

And yeah, that just kind of goes on day after day.

And so part of the story is just kind of giving you the flavor of the bleakness of what it would be like to be the only person who has survived this infection and not become a vampire. What he's been, you know.

And over the course of the story you get flashbacks to what he went through to get to that point right when the story starts, he's already in that last known survivor position.

But we learn about his wife, his daughter, his neighbors and so forth over the course of the story and flashback to all the challenging, traumatic and gut wrenching things that he went through to be in that position. We see what it takes on a day to day basis for him to just kind of survive under those conditions.

And then over time, he conducts a fairly detailed scientific investigation to try to understand what it is that happened. So that's how we know that it was a bacterial infection.

And that feels to me like, and perhaps because of my bias, that feels to me like the heart of what got Matheson motivated to write this story.

in the, in the real world of: 1954

And so, you know, it takes all of the quote unquote classic vampire traits. Being afraid of garlic, being killed, only susceptible to the stake, to the heart, not tolerating reflections, all these kinds of things.

Being able to turn into a bat. And kind of explores first of all, just which of these things actually are true and which of them are not.

For example, he pretty much tosses out the notion that they can turn into bats, and then which of these things could be explained by this bacterial infection, which of these things are psychological and so forth. So there's several lengthy passages in which he kind of explores how to explain away These different vampiric phenomena.

And then, yeah, as he's conducting this investigation, he has some different encounters with a couple of different notable vampire characters.

And by the end of the story, the bacterial infection has shifted and the infected humans relationship to us has shifted such that they are a bit more in control of their own choices and they are starting to form their own society.

In which he realizes that he is viewed as the sort of mythical monster who has gone around killing these vampires when they're trying to create their own society.

I guess I left out that bit that he spent a big part of his days also is just going around and staking vampires where they sleep so that he doesn't have to deal with them in the night.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:54

And.

Andy Walsh: 00:16:55

Yeah, so thereby we get the title I Am Legend. Because he realizes that he has passed out of. He's become the legend, the myth, the monster, and to this newly emerging society.

TJ Blackwell: 00:17:10

Yeah, so I was reading it and I got to the final passage this most recent time. I've read it once before, like, years ago, just because I was looking for something to read.

But this most recent time, I got to the end and I thought, you know, like, thought to myself, like, wow, how subversive. And I was like, no, actually, I don't think that is. That's not subversive. He's like the first person to do it like this.

There wasn't anything to subvert at the time, you know, but it is really interesting. I love it when an author just goes super, super in depth on something that the story's just not about.

Like, it really does feel like sometimes that Matheson wanted to write a medical journal instead of a vampire novel. I'll get, like, the same vibe. Have you ever read the Road by Cormac McCarthy or Blood Meridian? Blood Meridian.

So much of Blood Meridian is just, like, incredibly vivid descriptions of the area. Like mesas in Arizona. It's beautiful language. And then the rest of it is atrocities. Just genuinely awful things happening to good people.

terature too, because this is: 1954

He talks about his car, his Willis, his Willis station wagon, because there weren't Jeeps yet. It was Willis. I love that. That's so fun.

And you have a unique perspective because Robert Neville does get into, like, immunology, that microbiology, that's. He kind of gets driven into that state where he needs to know More about the vampires, like you said. He starts dissecting what is real, what is myth.

And at this point in: 1954

Which is not to say, you know, Dracula, Nosferatu weren't around already. Even Neville quotes Dracula, the book in I Am Legend. But it's cool.

He'll, like, kidnap a vampire that he knows was not Christian to see if a cross, you know, affects them at all. And it doesn't. He's. As he's researching the vampires, he gets.

You know, he starts going through his memories, and he remembers a vampire tried to climb a light pole and fly onto his roof by flapping his wings. And that's because the vampire thought he could turn into a bat because they, too, were susceptible to the myth of the vampire.

Super interesting to read.

Andy Walsh: 00:20:05

Yeah. I mean, he winds up. It is interesting because. And, you know, the character is, you know, basically described as frustrated by this.

But he's trying to explain so many of these vampire traits in terms of. There must be something about the bacterial infection itself that is giving rise to this. And then he winds up.

And I don't know if this is Matheson kind of throwing up his hands and going, I tried, and I couldn't figure out an explanation or if he. This is where he wanted to wind up with it.

But it's fairly late in the day when he goes, oh, actually, most of this has nothing to do with this infection. It's not necessary. It's just a psychosomatic feature of. We were raised on vampire literature, and so this is what we expect vampires to be like.

And so these people start behaving that way. They're afraid of.

They're afraid of the cross or whatever other religious symbol, because they were brought up in their religion to be afraid of becoming a vampire, be afraid of demons and so forth. And so the knowledge that they are now a demon means that they are damned. And so they're reacting that way because of the psychology of it.

You know, the mirror thing is, you know, that they're afraid of what they become or they find what they become distasteful and so forth. Yeah, it was certainly an interesting take on such things. It just kind of begged the question of, well, then why did the.

Where did the vampire legend. Where did these elements of the vampire legend come from?

Because we're also meant to believe or understand that all the stories about vampires, the folklore of Vampires came from actual people with this infection. And that for whatever reason, it was a rare infection in the past that has now become a global pandemic. Apologies for using that word, but.

So that's not really explaining what changed to make it much more infectious, but yeah.

So why did those things enter into the vampire folklore in the first place if it was always this bacterial infection that did not necessarily cause these elements? But there's only so much you can push on that.

But yeah, it was, it was interesting to see how much of it was just kind of tossed into under the heading of, well, this is what people think. This is how people think vampires should be. So when you become a vampire, that's what you do.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:26

Yeah, so they, they do actually. He like alludes to what makes it become, you know, more communicable or at least more widespread. But it's like one sentence.

You just have to catch it. It's one sentence where he realizes why it happened and then in a flashback, he mentions why the dust storms happen.

Because of the war, which in: 1954

The dust storms carry the germ, make it more communicable, make more people get it. He says that in, I think, literally one sentence out of this entire book.

Andy Walsh: 00:23:19

Yeah, you're right. And I think I just didn't buy that. And so that's why it didn't stick.

TJ Blackwell: 00:23:23

Yeah. Yeah. So it is still: 1954

So we skipped it out of zero out of 10, you know, or I guess one to 10. Please don't give it a zero. What do you think about I am Legend?

Andy Walsh: 00:23:46

You know, I would, I would probably put it like a six or seven. There was, there was more microbiology than I expected, which was. Which was pleasing to encounter.

It's not, you know, it's not my usual thing, vampire, zombie kind of stuff, but, you know, it's a, it's a well told story and it had, like I said, more details in it than I then I expected that captured my interest.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:08

So, yeah, yeah, I was, I was also pleasantly surprised. I'd give it like a solid eight. I think it's a fun read. I think it's a cool thing to read. Just. I like reading old stuff.

I like reading old Science fiction. I think it's a good time. And I think Robert Neville is a very interesting character.

I feel like I can't speak to this because I was not alive in the 50s. My dad. My dad wasn't alive in the 50s.

le think of when they think a: 1950

He spends a lot of the first 30, 40 odd pages talking about how the female vampires try to lure him outside with their bodies and how it's driving him crazy. So I'm glad he grows out of that. There is some growth in the book. There is some growth. But you said you haven't seen any of the movies, Correct?

None of them. Not even the Will Smith one?

Andy Walsh: 00:25:27

Not even the Will Smith one. Like I said, vampire zombies never really been my thing, so didn't. Didn't have a lot of selling points. Wow.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:35

Okay, well, you know, I'll cover them quickly. I have unfortunately not seen Last man on Earth or the Omega Man. I know Last man on Earth is Charlton Heston classic horror. I need to check it out.

The Omega Man, I think is really interesting, especially for the time Last man on Earth came out in 64, Omega man came out 71. And I like that.

You know, back then, the 60s, 70s, they weren't, you know, they weren't directing the story one to one, so they weren't gonna name it one to one. Even though from what I've read, they're much closer to the book than Will Smith's I Am Legend.

And then in: 2007

Also, stylistically, they have a lot of differences and we're not here to talk about the movies, but I just think it's cool that there are three of them. And I do really like the Will Smith movie.

And the only thing that I don't believe the other two do, that Will Smith's I Am Legend does is end in suicide. Spoiler warning. Once again, that is how the book ends.

He takes some pills given to him by a sympathetic vampire who doesn't want to see him be like beheaded or like bled out or whatever they have planned for him. So she slips him the little cocktail and it helps him go out that way.

But I think it's super interesting just looking at the different styles that we have portraying the story. I think it's a good story. I do. I might be an I am legend lover. Also very interesting on the points that they focus on.

So in the book, we know that Robert Neville is not a scientist. He was a soldier, then he worked at a plant. His dad was a scientist.

I think all three movies actually just skip straight to him being a scientist, where in the novella, we actually see him grow into being a scientist out of almost necessity because he gets tired of, you know, finding a new lathe. I thought it was cool to see Sears, like on his little to do list. He writes for himself. One day he's like, lathe at Sears, get a new lathe.

He's running out of dowels to make stakes to drive through their hearts. And then one day it just clicks. He's like, maybe I don't actually have to do that. Maybe I don't have to do that.

And I think it's also funny because the whole time he had guns. And one of the things that the bacteria actually is responsible for is making sure that guns do not work. I think that's super interesting.

Andy Walsh: 00:28:29

That was such a. Mr. Han, enter the Dragon. We're just having guns. Just. Nope.

TJ Blackwell: 00:28:36

Yeah, it's like, nope, guns don't work. They don't work. You can use them, but they just don't work. They do work on people in early stages of infection. I think it was.

Andy Walsh: 00:28:48

Yeah, I was a little fuzzy on, because there are parallel concepts of there are living people who are infected who are vampires, but then also the. The dead.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:01

Yeah.

Andy Walsh: 00:29:02

Become infected and come back to life as vampires. But also they died from the infection. Right. Like his.

His wife Virginia is someone who got infected, got sick from this bacterial infection, died from it, and then came back to life as an undead vampire.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:21

Yeah.

Andy Walsh: 00:29:21

So I don't understand how it was. It was unclear to me why that wasn't what happened to everyone. How there were some people that were still alive but also infected and also vampires.

And that seemed to be a difference. Right. That seemed to matter in terms of whether you could succumb to a bullet wound, how you responded to being staked.

It seemed to be a significant difference, but I didn't quite get why some people managed to be alive.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:52

Yeah.

Andy Walsh: 00:29:54

For years. Not just for days, but for years and years.

The society that forms as of these living vampires, they're the ones who are Able to sort of regain their mental faculties. Why they were infected for so long but not dead, I don't think was really explained.

TJ Blackwell: 00:30:16

Yeah. So do you think it would be better if it weren't a novella and we kind of got into why that is? Like explain the hierarchy to us.

Andy Walsh: 00:30:27

I mean, far be it for me to second guess a highly successful story that has spawned numerous, influenced numerous other writers and filmmakers and so forth.

But if I'm being asked to give editorial notes, I think my note would be instead of expanding the story to go into that detail, I would say just drop that detail and pick a lane. Either they are all undead vampires or they are all living vampires or however you want to describe it.

But I'm not sure that enough is made plot wise or story wise or theme wise from that distinction that it's worth sticking around. So I think the story works well for its simplicity, for its brevity, for its like, I'm going to get straight to the meat of things.

And so I think it would benefit more to just continue to hone it down to its bare essentials rather than trying to give it, expand it out in the modern tendency to just give everything a 12 issue or 12 episode prequel. Motivation.

TJ Blackwell: 00:31:44

Yeah, I feel like it almost purely serves to throw Robert Neville off course. It's a red herring. It doesn't actually matter. It just makes him susceptible to the vampire spy named Ruth.

I think if they had all been dead, he wouldn't have fallen for that.

Andy Walsh: 00:32:03

Yeah. And there's also a case you made that it's texture that adds, you know, an interesting wrinkle to the story.

And that's fine, you know, if I wouldn't insist on that note. But if I was being asked my opinion, which direction to go with that, that's, that's.

I think I would just simplify things rather than trying to complicate them more.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:21

I think it is interesting when he decided to put in and not so at the end of his three year, you know, stay in his home, his three year survival, he is accosted constantly every night by his former neighbor Ben Corman. And there are a couple. There's once where he gets Ben Corman into his home and doesn't kill him.

At that point he, you know, he reveals that he is a little sympathetic for these vampires because they didn't choose to be monsters. And then they push it even further when the new society of the living vampires comes to get him. They kill Ben Cortman.

And he's distraught because he's been listening To Ben Cortman, call his name for three years. And he's like watching from in his house, begging him to survive. I thought that was really interesting. And just shows growth in Robert.

Like, you know, I think that really, other than the vampires, that really might be what it's about is what a man can go through, what he can grow through.

Andy Walsh: 00:33:30

Yeah. I mean. Yes. What it takes to survive, what that does to you, what those circumstances force you to renegotiate.

I mean, that's clearly what the story is actually about. Not the microbiology of vampirism.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:44

Yeah. But it is cool. It is cool. Watching Robert Neville learn how to use a microscope. It was very relatable.

It's really annoying to use a good microscope for the first time. It's. It's. I just. It's good. I like it a lot. It's really good. That's what I have to say.

Andy Walsh: 00:34:55

What else?

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:56

There are some things that are unrealistic. He still has food. He sells, like frozen food and stuff. Like he runs a generator.

Andy Walsh: 00:35:03

You know, there is some evolution there. Right. Of he's starting out with. He's just kind of has the supplies of everybody that was around him. Right.

The first part of the book is like three months or six months in. And so he's still kind of living off of what he was able to raid from other people. So frozen food.

And it goes into some length into what he's doing to keep his generator going and so forth. Why he still has electricity. Is it entirely realistic? Maybe not. I don't know. Where is he getting the gasoline to power the generator?

At some point that's going to run out all these things. Yeah. There's definitely. Everything's on a ticking clock, just at different rates. Right.

But everything is going to run out because he does not have the ability to continue to produce these things. But it did seem like at some point he shifts. Well, at some point it talks about the food less.

But there does seem to be some acknowledgment of the only things would be left could be canned foods or things that he could have somehow grown after.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:05

A while, which he seems to have no problem growing. Garlic.

Andy Walsh: 00:36:09

Yes. Yes. He's an amazing gardener. If all you want is garlic.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:16

Yeah. If you really like garlic, that's your man. Because that's. He can. And it's all he does.

Andy Walsh: 00:36:22

Right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:23

No onions. No. Like, no other alliums even. It's just garlic.

Andy Walsh: 00:36:26

Just garlic.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:27

No chives, just garlic.

Andy Walsh: 00:36:28

They tried the other ones. They didn't work.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:31

Yeah, they didn't do anything to vampires.

Andy Walsh: 00:36:32

Why would he grow. That is one of the few things that is biochemical and not just psychological. The revulsion to garlic.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:42

Yeah. Which is so cool.

I just think it's really interesting what he decided to go with there and wish we could prove it wrong, but I. I do really feel like it would have served better to be at least twice as long, you know, like it could have been just barely, not a novella. And I think that would have served it wonderfully just so we could get a little bit more of that depth.

I feel like him showing compassion for Ben Cortman and just shows to us that he could have. He could have blended in with this new society. Really could have. And I think it would have been interesting to see what that was like.

But once again, it was too late for him because he had been, you know, during their night, he had been going into their homes and killing them. And he only got better at doing it. He got more efficient. He didn't have to lay the dowels to go kill 45 of them a day while they sleep.

He just found out he could just cut their wrist. Anything to stop the. He calls it body glue. That makes them bulletproof. Anything to stop that from forming, that works. That's why stakes worked.

Body glue just couldn't form around them.

Andy Walsh: 00:37:57

Yeah, I. I'm still unclear as to why a bullet didn't have the same.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:00

Effect, but that one was him, that one was Matheson being like, oh, no, guns would make this too easy. Got to figure something out.

Andy Walsh: 00:38:10

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:10

Because, you know, Dracula, they didn't have to worry about that. Yep, they didn't have to worry about that.

But is there anything else you want to mention about the story before we, you know, before we start to wrap up?

Andy Walsh: 00:38:23

It turns out that, you know,: 1954

So: 1953

It was only: 1952

When we talk about our genes and what we get from our parents, that it was DNA that's carrying that for the previous 60ish years, maybe longer than that, maybe 70 or 80 years, DNA, we knew what the sort of biochemical makeup of cells were. We knew that DNA was a thing that was present in all cells.

ld. And so, yeah, it was only: 1952

were some experiments in the: 1940

And so, yeah, it was: 1952

So some of the viruses had radioactive sulfur, some of them had radioactive phosphorus and infected bacteria and found that what went inside the bacteria to cause the infection was the phosphorus labeled DNA and that the sulfur labeled protein all stayed on the outside of the bacteria. That was the thing that finally convinced people. It's interesting to read in the book, he talks about the. He talks about bacteriophage.

reached the General public by: 1953

I'm not sure when he wrote the story versus when he was published.

So, you know, not a criticism, but it's just kind of interesting that, like, he's kind of right in some ways, right on the cutting edge of molecular biology of the day by writing about bacteriophages and some of these different issues. But, yeah.

Oh, it's also, as a historical note, it's kind of interesting that Hershey Chase kind of got lucky in their choice of model system, because bacteriophages or the bacteriophages they were using inject their DNA into the interior of the bacterial cell. But that's not how all viruses work.

A lot of viruses, actually the whole thing, protein and nucleic acid in total, get taken up by the cell that they're infecting, and then they separate inside the cell and replicate. And so if they'd used a different virus model, they would have actually gotten inconclusive results.

And it might have taken even longer to figure out what that DNA was, what our genes were made out of. But it worked out in their favor. So that was just.

That's an interesting little anecdote, but yeah, so it just kind of, you know, it's cool to think about, you know, for how much detail there is in the biology of the story. A lot of that was, you know, fairly, fairly contemporary science and other elements.

Most of what we know about germ theory and bacteria and so forth was a product of the previous 50 years of biology. So still fairly recent developments.

TJ Blackwell: 00:43:04

Yeah. I think there's one point where he had just gotten into his scientific streak where he admonishes germ theory.

He's like, oh, of course they were right. Of course germs are real. That's why we're in this mess. I thought that was really funny.

But that's what makes this a science fiction novella instead of just a horror novella. Because at the time, this is the cutting edge. This is real science. These days, my eyes would probably bounce off of this on a page, but he was in it.

He was in the cut, as the kids would say. But I think that's it for us, for I am legendary. Let us know if you want us to specifically review any of the three movies.

Andy Walsh: 00:43:49

We will.

TJ Blackwell: 00:43:50

I'm down to rewatch all of them. Andy is not a vampire fan, so we can exclude him if he. If he doesn't want to, but I'll do it.

And as for our supporters, they get an extra question, and that question is going to be, if you were in this situation, is there a specific person's house or business that you would want to hold yourself up in? We're going to answer that after we finish.

So do you have a recommendation for somebody that isn't a novella, you know, something to read that's not a novella?

Andy Walsh: 00:44:27

Sure. So I'm going to bang a drum that I've banged before.

But the book that this most put me in mind of was Project Cal Mary by Andy Weird, which also has a lot of microbiology at its center and will also be adapted into a forthcoming movie. This coming March, I believe is the release date now with Ryan Gosling, directed by Lord and Miller. So I've been very excited about that movie.

That was the movie I was most looking forward to this year until I found out that it wasn't actually coming out this year. But they filmed it last year. They could have put it out this year.

TJ Blackwell: 00:45:04

They didn't do it just to make you upset.

Andy Walsh: 00:45:06

Well, you know, there were a lot of movies that had come out this year because of the strikes and all the previous year. So I understand the business of these things a little bit. It's a really good book in its own right.

Also has some interesting microbiology, some real microbiology and some science fiction microbiology as well, and some other cool things. So yeah, that is the book that comes to mind as something I would recommend off the back of this, if you liked I Am Legend. Give that a try.

TJ Blackwell: 00:45:36

Mm, yeah, I. Similar vein. Way more science fictiony, way less vampirey.

Andy Walsh: 00:45:43

We're.

TJ Blackwell: 00:45:44

We're aliens and spaceships here, but to sleep in a sea of stars. Christopher Paolini's like flagship sci fi novel, his first one. I think it's really interesting. It gives him really.

It's more, it's more of like a xenobiology kind of point of view for a good bit of that book. And I think it's super interesting. I think he knocks it out of the park. I love that book. I can't wait for the rest of the series.

I'm seated when he releases it.

Andy Walsh: 00:46:12

Check it out.

TJ Blackwell: 00:46:13

I think it's phenomenal, but if you're listening, hope you enjoyed it. We love having you guys here. As always, please remember, rate and review the show wherever you rate and review shows.

If big shout out to Amber Riley for supporting us financially. We couldn't do it without you.

But all purchases of the all reading counts merch, bonus questions or donations marked all reading counts will go to supporting local libraries.

Typically it is like one of our supporting, you know, one of our local libraries, but if you have a library in mind that you just want us to donate to on your behalf, we can do that. Include it in a donation. Let us know. DM us, email, email us whatever you want to do. Remember, don't yuck someone's yum. We are systematic geekology.

We like to systematically geek out on things together. So, you know, be friendly, be happy, have fun, and we'll see you next time.