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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780671741037
ISBN number: 0671741039
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 960
Printing Date: June 01, 1987
Publishing house: Pocket
Sale Popularity Level: 31899
Studio: Pocket
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Product Description:
An ancient evil roams the desolate landscape of an America ravaged by nuclear war.
He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, a malevolent force that feeds on the dark desires of the countless followers he has gathered into his service. His only desire is to find a special child named Swan -- and destroy her. But those who would protect the girl are determined to fight for what is left of the world?and their souls.
In a wasteland born of rage, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, the last survivors on earth have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity....
Amazon.com:
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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Rated by buyers 
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I read McCammon's "The Wolf's Hour" when I was a teenager and was amazed by the author's daring: who would have thought to combine werewolves with the spy genre? In the intervening years I forgot the name of the book as well as the author. When I finally remembered the author's name and discovered McCammon wrote a post-apocalyptic novel, I just had to pick it up.
I was not prepared for Swan Song. This review contains spoilers, so if you want to be as unprepared I was read no further.
Steeped in 1980s Cold War paranoia, Swan Song is an end-of-the-world parable about good and evil. There are multiple protagonists, including Sister the formerly crazy homeless woman, Swan the girl who can make plants grow, Josh the giant grey wrestler, and a whole pile of supporting characters that are too numerous to list here. On the bad guy side we have Colonel Macklin, a former military officer holed up in a mountain fortress, Roland Croninger, a psychotic gamer and Friend, who might just be the Devil incarnate. There are occasional nods to mysticism, including a glass ring/crown, a magic mirror, a dowsing stick named Crybaby, and a bit of fortunetelling. Indeed, much of the book's plot involves tarot mysticism, a point I gradually lost track of throughout the book's nearly thousand pages.
It's a tribute to McCammon's writing that World War III is every bit as horrible as we fear. The sight of a bus hurled high into the air, flaming bodies falling out of it like burnt embers, stuck with me long after I finished the book. And the fear and hope of the survivors holed up in the mountain fortress as they watch the missiles pass overhead is palpable. His text often verges on the poetic, and McCammon's is careful to realistically portray the effects of radiation and conflict: shock, blisters, and bruises are a common occurrence. I never realized how rarely you hear about shock in fiction until I read Swan Song.
On the other hand, McCammon occasionally veers off into crazy mutant-land with two headed mountain lions, another doomsday device, and another mountain fortress. And that's where Swan Song breaks down a bit. Midway through the book, the plot advances by seven years. The purpose of the time shift seems primarily to move Swan's age forward so she can have a romantic interest, but it's a bit much to swallow--McCammon works so hard to make the world feel real, and then doesn't do enough to make it feel aged by seven years. Relationships seem frozen in time and characters rarely reference the intervening years.
Swan Song is also relentlessly grim: sodomy, rape, infanticide, patricide, matricide, disease, torture, suicide, drug use...it's all on ugly display here. After awhile, it gets so bad it's difficult to stick with the book. When McCammon skips forward in time, I had difficulty believing the characters survived in such a depressing land. But it does get better, eventually, and that's where the biggest problem lies...
There's no real climax between good and evil. The crown/ring of jewels that Sister spends her whole life protecting is hinted at being even more powerful in Swan's hands. And that's it. Friend, the shapeshifting demonic presence, is clearly constrained by limits of the flesh...until it's inconvenient to the plot.
After a thousand pages, you better believe I expect the book to culminate in a holy war. I'm glad McCammon finally gives his poor characters a break (the few he leaves alive, that is), but I'm less pleased by the failure to really settle things once and for all. It's like reading only the very first two books of Lord of the Rings. I wanted closure, dammit!
Still, Swan Song is a triumph of writing and definitely worth reading. McCammon provides a tantalizing glimpse of a world that we all secretly know and fear. And he writes with the deft vision of a movie director, creating moments (a race to the death in a mall filled with psychopaths, a showdown with hungry wolves, the aforementioned nuclear war) that haunt your dreams long after you've finished Swan Song.
Rated by buyers 
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I got completely caught up in this book, and stayed up much later than I should have most nights to get further in it. You get completely sucked in to the gritty world and the characters' struggles. I could not put this book down. Anyone who loves post-apocalyptic books should definitely give this a read.
Rated by buyers -
Swan song is a book you cant put down. If you are into Science fiction you will love it.
Rated by buyers -
I loved McCammon books but had yet to read Swan Song. I saw that over 300 people had given this book 5 stars. Had to have it. Over 900 pages and I mowed through it and wanted more. I am a slow reader usually. I am doing good to get through a book of 350 pages in a couple of weeks if I really like it. I got through this 900+ in a week and a half. What a great read! The very first few chapters kind of set things up for the coming nuclear holocaust and then the rest of the book is about survival. McCammon has a way of making you feel a part of the action and I loved every minute of it. A couple of moments that really caught my attention...Air Force One in flight after the devastation...some of the survivors contract a growth that eventually cover's their whole head like a hard shell - nicknamed the "Job's Mask." Really good characters and enough going on to constantly keep your attention.
Rated by buyers -
This is a very long book that spans almost a thousand pages. However, Swan Song is a captivating story that keeps the reader hooked from start to finish. It's a delicious blend of horror, drama, science fiction and adventure.
It's been a long time since I very first read this book (some 20 years ago), so some of the details of the story are a little hazy to me now. Fow many years Robert R. McCammon was my favourite author - and he's still one of my favourites to this day. And even though I no longer recall the story in fine detail, I remember it being the best McCammon novel I've ever read.
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