If not the very best episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Richard Matheson's STEEL is certainly one of the Top Five- and one of the greatest short stories ever written. Lee Marvin manages to convincingly convey the down-but-not-out determination of the true Pug- that resilience to push on, regardless of the overwhelming odds, to take the pain every step of the way en route to an often unattainable Glory. Matheson's description of the fight itself between "Steel" and The Man Made Of Steel stands not only as one of the most IMAGINATIVE stories of its type ever written, but also as one of the all-time greatest blow-by-blow boxing accounts ever written. (Norman Mailer's account of the first Frazier-Ali fight in LIFE magazine was a close second, with some of Robert E. Howard's IRON MAN stories not far behind...) I AM LEGEND has been my all-time favorite novel since I first read it (in 1971), and I've had short stories published that, more often than not, were written with what I call "a Richard Matheson accent." It's mind-boggling to think that there'll never be another Richard Matheson story, that The Most Imaginative Writer in the World is gone forever. He was TRULY One of A Kind. There will never be another like him.
