Swan Song

Rating:
Summary: one of the best mistakes of my life
Review: i first picked up this book from the sales rack in the mall, craving a thick and lasting story. little did i know that i would be reading this book in two weeks, spending may late hours lost in the descriptive world of Robert McCammon. the first chapters were dry and misleading, but once the bombs hit, the story spiralled into a masterpiece of post-nuclear terror.

Actually two books in one, the first was better by far, graphic and unapologizing for its intensity in the barrage of personalized characters suffering from the actions of the "world leaders" who made the world into a deadly scape of misery and opened the path for hellish actions that reveal the face of uncontrolled evil in humanity.

But the ultimate fight is between Good and Evil, the Good represented in a young girl and her protector, being one of society's outcasts. The Evil is spread through several deeply involved characters with their own ghosts and nightmares that shape their lives during the post holocaust survival.

I have never read "the stand" but "Swan Song" will draw you into a world of vivid imagination, hope, failure, reality and mankind's struggle to survive in spite of itself.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: To say this novel deserves 5 stars is an understatement! It was an incredible force of a novel by one of our masters of the art. I breathlessly poured through this book knowing that Robert McCammon would not disappoint with every turn and twist. What an epic! If your a fan of Stephen King's The Stand, Swan Song is an absolute MUST! Do yourself a favor and read this book! And don't stop there! My other McCammon favorites are They Thirst, Wolf's Hour, Stinger and Boys' Life.

Rating:
Summary: A Superb Book
Review: I borrowed this book from a friend, a few years back. At the time, I expected nothing more than a novel to get me through the summer vacation months, but boy was I wrong.
The book starts out slowly, building up the characters and their lives before the bombs drop, a good move which keeps the characters fresh and interesting all throughout the story. Robert McCammon does an excellent job in keeping the story from becoming stale and manages to keep suprising the reader with plot twists.

One scene that caught my eye when reading this book was the one in which the bombs fell, and the carnage that was wrought upon the world. The violence of the scene coupled with the desperation that the characters display is truly heart-wrenching. I couldn't have written it better myself.

I will not lie to you, some of the visualizations and actions of the people in this book are disturbing and at times hard to read, but very worthwhile. Perhaps if more people see the horror of Nuclear Arms, they will be more reluctant to employ them in the future.

All in all a very excellent read, and a worthwhile addition to any collection. A very good book.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. McCammon's Opus
Review: 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."

Rating:
Summary: Things That Make You Go Hmm...
Review: I've always been open-minded about books so when this lady I work with gave me "Swan Song", despite it's 900+ pages, I gave it a shot and was delighted. It starts out kind of slow, but stick with it because you quickly get sucked into the tale of a post nuclear war earth that's so believable it's eerie. McCammon is great at creating characters you genuinely care for (Swan, Josh, Sister) and characters you despise (Colonel Macklin, Roland, and, uh, the Devil is pretty much a given). Plus I liked how he portrayed his Devil more realistically, he wasn't all-knowing or all-powerful. It never really drags and honestly it could have gone on for another 500 pages for all I cared because I was perfectly enchanted by the plot, the characters, and just everything over all. Plus it really makes you think about how much stock we put in material objects like houses and money when in the flash of a moment that could all go poof! While I know "Swan Song" was supposed to be set in America, my only complaint is that it would have been nice to find out about other countries. The Canadian in me was wondering what would have happened to us if the US got bombarded by nuclear weapons and what about other countries that weren't even near the US and Russia? Not that it detracts from the book a whole lot, but I did have to wonder:)

Rating:
Summary: 5-Stars!
Review: I actually found my 1987-printing of Swan Song on the "give-away" cart at my local library. I had no clue what it was about; I simply picked it because it looked like a post-apocolyptic/cataclysmic novel, a setting I love! Thankfully, my instincts served me very, very well. Robert McCammon's portrait of a bleak, devestated Earth is, in my opinion, slightly superior to that of Stephen King's novel, The Stand. A great read for those who loved the latter!

Rating:
Summary: An epic tale that you cannot put down for a moment.
Review: In terms of sheer volume, SWAN SONG is one weighty tome. Bad puns aside, this epic tale of post-Apocalyptic misery and hope is also a great popcorn novel. It could use a better editor's pass, but the characters are vivid and human, even if the dialogue is B-movie. What gives the book its high readability factor are the intricacies of its plot and its rich set pieces of action, drama and imaginative telling of a post-nuclear world. That divine magic could be found on Fifth Avenue near the Tiffany and Steuben shops is genius -- all carried in a Gucci bag. A bag lady Carrie Bradshaw as Prophet is unexpected, as are much of the plot twists in this novel. I'm not the market for this type of read, but I enjoyed it more than any recent Stephen King novel. It is not THE STAND, but something that succeeds on its own merits. A great summer read.

Rating:
Summary: Apocalypse of huge proportions
Review: This was a good read if you out to enjoy a book that gives a way out idea of how the human race might react to the break down of all rules, and we were left to decide our own fate. It show that as per usual the human race is its own worst enemy. Some great characters and some unusual bad guys worth a read but a large long read.

Rating:
Summary: It's the end of the world as we know it....
Review: Swan Song By Robert R, McCammon is a great book for anyone who is a fan of Stephen King's The Stand. The one thing that I really enjoyed about Mr. McCammon book more that The Stand is that Swan Song has a much steady pace. The reader isn't bogged down in details that are not important to the storyline. Don't let the size scare you off. Because it is a great read anytime.

Rating:
Summary: Great recommendation from his fans!
Review: I was in the middle of a book called, "The Desent", and I had to put in down due to extreme boredom. The reviewers of that book all recommended, "Swan Song". I'm appalled that in all of my years of reading, I wasn't familier with Robert R. McCammon. I thank you all because "Swan Song" was an exciting read, in the vein of, "The Stand", yet distinguished in its own feeling. I will be reading more books by him.