- ISBN13: 9781439156735
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Product Description
“We’re about to cross the point of no return. God help us; we’re flying in the dark and we don’t know where the hell we’re going.”
Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen—from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City—will fight for survival.
Swan Song is Robert McCammon’s prescient and “shocking” (John Saul) vision of a post- Apocalyptic nation, a grand epic of terror and, ultimately, renewal.
In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth’s last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity: Sister, who discovers a strange and transformative glass artifact in the destroyed Manhattan streets . . . Joshua Hutchins, the pro wrestler who takes refuge from the nuclear fallout at a Nebraska gas station . . . And Swan, a young girl possessing special powers, who travels alongside Josh to a Missouri town where healing and recovery can begin with Swan’s gifts. But the ancient force behind earth’s devastation is scouring the walking wounded for recruits for its relentless army, beginning with Swan herself. . . .
Amazon.com Review
Swan Song is rich with such characters as an ex-wrestler named Black Frankenstein, a New York City bag lady who feels power coursing from a weird glass ring, a boy who claws his way out of a destroyed survivalist compound. They gather their followers and travel toward each other, all bent on saving a blonde girl named Swan from the Man of Many Faces. Swan Song is often compared to Stephen King’s The Stand, and for the most part, readers who enjoy one of the two novels, will enjoy the other. Like The Stand, it’s an end-of-the-world novel, with epic sweep, apocalyptic drama, and a cast of vividly realized characters. But the tone is somewhat different: The good is sweeter, the evil is more sadistic, and the setting is harsher, because it’s the world after a nuclear holocaust. Swan Song won a 1988 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. It’s a monster of a horror book, brimming over with stories and violence and terrific imagery–God and the Devil, the whole works.
Jeffrey Leach @ 3:10 pm
The apocalyptic genre is an endearing phenomenon in fiction. Even after the collapse of the Cold War, authors are still pumping out new novels about the end of civilization. That’s probably due to the fact that nuclear war isn’t the only way to kill off the human race; Stephen King got a lot of mileage out of a killer virus in “The Stand.” This book, by the excellent storyteller Robert McCammon, resembles King’s classic novel in several respects, but McCammon sticks with the classic nuclear annihilation scenario in “Swan Song,” a book written as the Cold War was winding down in the late 1980’s.
“Swan Song” starts out on a bleak note, and quickly goes down hill from there. The world is in turmoil as terrorists use nuclear bombs with impunity, the U.S. and the USSR constantly engage in skirmishes around the world, and the economy does a nosedive straight into the ground. Inevitably, the bombs are launched and the world erupts in a thousand mushroom clouds. This is all within the first hundred pages or so. What follows is the real story, and McCammon pulls out all the stops introducing us to the characters that drive the story.
Just like McCammon’s novel “Stinger,” there are many major characters in “Swan Song.” McCammon introduces us to Sister Creep, a New York bag lady fostering a horrific personal tragedy; Josh, a 7′ black wrestler (known as Black Frankenstein) with a heart of gold; Colonel “Jimbo” Macklin, a former war hero with an ominous shadow dogging his every move; and Roland Croninger, a wise beyond his years child who grows into Macklin’s sadistic acolyte.
This is post-apocalypse, so there is the unavoidable good vs. evil theme running through the book. The good is Swan, a young girl who has the power to renew earth’s ecosystem. The bad is the man with the scarlet eye, a shape shifter who makes King’s Randall Flag look like the Osmond family. The other characters revolve around these two figures as the grand finale of the novel nears.
McCammon has the ability to make his characters endearing and genuine. There are no cardboard cutouts in this book. Even tertiary characters are developed with loving care. It’s relatively easy to draw evil characters because evil is easy to see. What is difficult is to craft characters on the other side of the moral coin, and McCammon does it with seeming ease. You learn to really care about these people, something that doesn’t happen often in books of this genre.
The atmosphere in “Swan Song” is bleak and oppressive. McCammon has no qualms about presenting life in a post-nuclear world. Cruelty is presented as normal behavior, and characters are mutilated or killed off quite frequently. Warlords battle for control of the country while little villages try to recreate a sense of community. The endless description of a shattered world slowly instills in the reader a sense of despair. McCammon’s vivid portrait of a world gone mad certainly resurrects images of the Cold War and its shrieking insanity, when the world lived under the constant shadow of agonizing death.
While “Swan Song” clocks in at a hefty 950 pages, its pages pass by like a swift summer breeze. In the final analysis, McCammon’s message in this book is one of hope; no matter how badly the human race messes things up, salvation may still be within reach. That is a message that transcends any age, and that is the significance of “Swan Song.”
John D. Costanzo @ 3:27 pm
Written in the mid-eighties, the book describes in chilling detail the nightmare of the times, i.e., nuclear holocaust. Some of the background events may be a bit outdated, but in light of the recent terrorist attacks we know there is still the threat of mass destruction. So my point is that the book is still pretty darn scary! The first couple of hundred pages that describe the nuclear attack and immediate aftermath are terrifying. The horrors that are described throughout the book are gruesome. America has become a scorched and barren landscape. The survivors miraculously scratch out an existence and somehow keep alive the hope of a future in which the sun will shine again and the land will bear fruit again. Ultimately, the story is about the struggle between good and evil, and how the stress of tragic events brings out the best in some and the worst in others.
For a book of over 900 pages, it is a surprisingly fast read, and there are no lulls. McCammon is a superb storyteller who has created memorable characters and a detailed setting. Swan Song is a great book that I think ranks along side The Stand, which for years has stood as my favorite horror novel.
Anonymous @ 3:33 pm
My aunt lent me this book and I figured it sounded a lot like the Stand, which at the time was my favorite novel. I read Swan Song every night for a week and a half. It was way better then the stand, and wasn’t anything like it aside from the ‘end of the world’ scenario and an evil rising to threaten the survivors, so I’m not even going to compare the two books. The characters in Swan Song are so richly developped that you begin to feel for them. It’s almost like you want to protect Swan just as much as the characters do. The last hundred pages or so are simply outstanding. It was so suspenseful that I could hardly sit still, and when it was over, I wished there was more to it then its 956 pages. The ending is what got me the most. There couldn’t have been a more fitting end to this amazing story. I enjoyed everything about this book. It never gets boring, it doesn’t have seven hundred characters in it all doing different things (like another novel i already said i wouldn’t compare it to), but instead three main groups. The symbolism is just amazing, and the underlying themes and story is incredible. I can’t say enough about it, so read it for yourself.
Anonymous @ 4:33 pm
..but it comes pretty close. Sure, we don’t know every detail of everyone’s personality. Some of the minor characters seem sketched in without a lot of detail (but that’s inevitable.. don’t we all think of some people that way?). Some of the parts seemed to follow obvious formulas. But it was easy for me to look past those few flaws: this is after all, a work of science FICTION. Does anyone really believe God has some hand in the effects of nuclear radiation that will give everyone a different face? God isn’t even mentoined or dwelled on too much, something I and any fellow agnostics find refreshing in such an epic book. But I digress.
Basically, you’ll love Swan Song if you don’t have the wrong expectations. It’s an apocalyptic thriller, it’s an action/adventure story, it’s got some human drama, and there’s some supernatural horror. I haven’t read very many books that made me imagine so vividly what it would be like to be there.
By the way: this is in no way a ripoff of “The Stand.” Are some people so devoid of imagination that they label all apocalypse-themed books as the same regardless of all their differences? Unlike “The Stand,” this book has character growth, a real villain (a competent one, no less), and a real conflict at the end. And unlike King, McCammon doesn’t rely on a (literal) Deus ex Machina ending to save his story. Pick up Swan Song if you’re looking for a good read.. but be warned, it’s hard to put down.
John Schinter @ 7:32 pm
What happens after a global nuclear war? The author does an exceptional job at creating a series of inter-related stories, that demonstrate the different mindsets of individuals as they are faced with surviving in radioactive waste and destroyed cities and landscapes.
Swan Song is an excellent book – and recommend it highly to individuals for literature discussions and school assignments. I thought it was a horror story, but found it to be a modern tale of survival, compassion, greed, love and friendship. Written in the spirit of Frankenstein, where evil characters were not motivated by evil – but by the need to survive.
I found it strange (in a good way), that one of the hero’s in the book (Sister Creep), starts out in the book as a homeless “bag lady”.