I Am a Legend sounds really fun, detour into misogyny aside. It reminds me of those 1980s romances, in which raping women until they get to like it is a perfectly acceptable (and, indeed, expected) wooing strategy.

To be fair to Robert Neville (the protagonist in I Am Legend) he never actually rapes anyone. He locks the woman in question in a bathroom and throws mashed-up garlic at her and screams at her, but he doesn't actually rape her.

On the other hand, Matheson does have Neville angst about his sexual drives a lot. Neville struggles with the fact that he has wants and needs like all other men but doesn't have anyone to help him take care of them. Masturbation doesn't seem to be on the cards. The female vampires flash him whenever he peeks outside in the hope of luring him out, and occasionally he is tempted to go outside. Matheson doesn't quite seem to get that knowing that the woman who's flapping her bits at you outside is a) diseased, b) possibly dead, and c) going to kill you if you approach her is going to be a perfectly sufficient bonerkill for most men.

To Die In Italbar, on the other hand, has a female love interest who was mistreated and discriminated against because of her background (she grew up on a world belonging to a galactic empire opposed to that which she hails from). The only job open to her is prostitution. Oh no! But wait, it's okay, because she's a dominatrix, because beating people is how she copes with her overwhelming hatred of society. And later on all it takes is the love of a good man to redeem her.

So again, I Am Legend wins by a mile.

But flashing female vampires are *traditional* - everybody knows that. I don't know, I'm not a man, but perhaps there comes a time of such pure sexual frustration that diseased, dead and going to kill you turn out to be minor flaws. It would explain the Internet, at least.

As for To Die In Italbar, I'm just going to say oh dear!