Swan Song
by Robert McCammon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert McCammonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-11-10
ISBN: 1439156735
Number of pages: 864
Publisher: Gallery Books
Book Reviews of Swan Song
Book Review: Don't let the title fool you
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first read this book it was in the dead of winter, which at the time felt apropos. As I came to the final pages, Spring was making a return appearance, the sun was staying out longer each day, and you could feel the warmth invade your bones. For anyone who lives in New England, you understand. I thought maybe I loved this book because of this first-time seasonal coincidence, but it goes much deeper than that. Since then, and every year thereafter, I've re-read Swan Song. Not out of boredom, or lack of something to read, but because I wanted to visit with the people I met in its pages, and relive the nuclear aftermath that is so pervasive you come to believe the Earth has always been bleak, dark, cold, and grimy.
During each read I 'see' more, and learn more, and the characters become even more alive than before. It shows the author's talent that he managed to pack so much information into such a disparate group of people that you come to care about them, knowing they are simply figments of his imagination. The scenarios are haunting, the plot is thick with adventure and pulse-pounding, and the literary allusions require thoughtful consideration.
The descriptions are so vivid you can actually feel the heat from the nuclear explosions, taste the oily water people are forced to drink, smell the rotting corpses littering the landscape, and hear the swarm of flies as they flap away from inside the antagonist's gullet.
The only thing I regret about this book is its title. Unlike Cormac's The Road, Swan Song sounds like a silly little horror book using a play on words (it incorporates the titular main character). It is anything but. This is not a horror novel as much as it is a meditation on the nature of man, his will to survive, and his capacity for evil. There are supernatural aspects in the book, but they are so plausible and subtle you don't feel like you've been had or that the author is 'cheating.' It simply makes sense.
I encourage anyone who has not read this to buy it, borrow it, check it out of the library, or download for the Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation) (not sure if they have the latter). My solemn hope is that some brave director-studio-writer will adapt this into film, whether for the big screen or as a TV mini-series. I'm sure it'll get mucked up, but boy that would be very cool to see all these characters brought to life. And they ARE characters.
I've given this book as a gift to people I know will at least give it a chance and all they can is "Wow!" This is the jewel in the crown of McCammon's library, and worth every second you spend exploring its pages.
Summary of Swan Song
?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. . . .
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.
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