Swan Song (edizione 2016)

A good novel that would have been a great novel if Stephen King hadn't already written it a decade earlier. Loses one star for unoriginality. Better ending than The Stand so it gains a star for that. Mega-thermonuclear disaster not realistically portrayed (McCammon should have talked to Clancy) as far as effects and survivability. A bit dated as well due to Cold War thaw. All of this took away that star that would have made it five.

I'm not sure why a writer as good as McCammon chose to fugue off a theme that King practically owned after The Stand. Everyone has tried to beat it and most fail. I'm just not sure what he thought he could bring to it. ( )

4.5 stars. Great character development, fantastic story. Really long, just over 900 pages. Very realistic end-of-the-world apocalypse story, that shows how it all begins with nuclear war and then its aftermath = speculative fiction. Scary and sad, real and fantastical, good vs. evil, hope vs. despair. The characters are ones I will be talking about in the future, as I feel like we went through this together and I totally believed in them. ( )

I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction. Published in the mid-eighties, this really captures the hysteria regarding fears of a World War 3 nuclear holocaust. But it isn't just straight up dystopia--there's magic too. And evil. Very melodramatic, but in a good way: the villains are really, really awful and the heroes are lovely. The comparisons to The Stand are valid, but I liked this better than The Stand. ( )

This is a massive post-apocalyptic fantasy that is both disturbing and uplifting. Full of well-etched characters and relentlessly narrated, this novel kept me in its grip the whole of its length of 900-odd pages. For the most part, the story is bleak, with the privations suffered by the characters described in gory detail. The author has blended the element of supernatural with the ordinary so well that it does not stick out.
I liked this book a lot and will remember many of the characters for a long time. ( )

This is the book, I believe, that many consider his best. Having read it now for the second time, I can categorically state that this is not the case. That award will always go to [b:Boy's Life|11553|Boy's Life|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1314302694s/11553.jpg|16685995].

McCammon's first three novels showed an author who very obviously loved the genre, had some talent, but still needed to grow as a writer. His characters were usually solid but there were times when the plots were a touch lacking ([b:Baal|11560|Baal|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1280365481s/11560.jpg|16695995], [b:The Night Boat|219523|The Night Boat|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1297549365s/219523.jpg|16696210]). [b:Bethany's Sin|11559|Bethany's Sin|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1315187054s/11559.jpg|16696150] began that course correct.

His next three books ([b:They Thirst|462658|They Thirst|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1214586224s/462658.jpg|16695823], [b:Mystery Walk|11552|Mystery Walk|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1417632834s/11552.jpg|16695901], [b:Usher's Passing|11550|Usher's Passing|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388529780s/11550.jpg|16695959]) saw McCammon improve as a plotter while still maintaining good characters (for the most part). But I also noticed in these three novels, two things.

The first was, McCammon has this unusual habit of holding up the weakness of his villain very early on. I can distinctly remember in each of these books, reading a particular scene and thinking, Well, this guy is doomed. In each case, the cause of that downfall tended to be insecurity covered by bluster. It's okay once in a while, but when the author also writes heroes that are, for the most part, unflagging in their goodness, it becomes very obvious very quickly which way the wind's gonna blow.

The second thing I noticed is, with those last three novels, it's obvious that McCammon both draws from those who came before, and also doesn't mind playing in their sandboxes. Reading those three novels, I saw some Matheson, some John Farris, obviously Poe, and, of course, Stephen King.

Granted, no one has a bigger sandbox than King, and King is blatant in his inspirations: Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, etc. So, I'm not saying this as a slight against McCammon, it's just that it's as noticeable as it is with King.

Which leads us to Swan Song. This novel is everything mentioned above, but more obvious. As others have said, coming less than a decade after King's The Stand, it's hard not to draw comparisons. Both involve the events that wipe most of humanity off the map. Both have a bit of a whackjob as the villain. Both have a young woman at the forefront of the resistance. I will say, one the things McCammon successfully dodges is King's propensity for the Magical Black Mentor(TM) character.

But for all that, this novel is its own thing, and McCammon carves a more urban path than King did. This one is more "street".

But, some of the same McCammon issues from previously crop up. His villain, The Man With The Scarlet Eye, shows a weakness fairly early on, which you know is going to lead to his eventual downfall. There's some plotting issues that bothered me, such as when the entire town of Mary's Rest, having essentially ignored each other since forever, suddenly turns into a gleeful all-sharing village in the span of minutes. With just shy of 1000 pages to work with, I would have appreciated a more measured approach.

There's also the issue with the glass ring (or crown, depending on the page). There's a point where (and here's where I enter spoiler territory, so...)

...where Swan puts the glass crown on her head, and a cloak of energy armour begins to engulf her. It's a decent scene, cut short as the energy gets about halfway down her body before she pulls the crown off and stops the process.

Why put this scene in, significantly close to the end of the novel, only to never bring it up ever again? It feels like McCammon had one ending ready to go, then, at the last moment, went another way, but forgot to yank this scene out in the editing process.

Generally, the book was very good. But along with the points above, and the fact that the good guys were very, very good (with the single possible exception of Robin), and the bad guys were very, very bad, the book was a fun read.

I know there will always be the argument of which post-apocalyptic novel was better, Swan Song or The Stand, but for me, when McCammon builds a story, he often leaves some of the struts showing, some of the scaffolding obvious, some of the tools and whatnot laying about. King, on the other hand, is a master craftsman who does the job, does it well, leaves nothing behind, and makes the whole damn thing look effortless.

So, of the two, I think you know which one I'd go with for winner. ( )