Swan Song
by Robert R. McCammon
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Pocket Books (New York): 1987. Paperback: 956 pages. ISBN-10: 0-671-74103-9 Suggested retail price: $7.99 (US) Tags: armageddon; nuclear war; Science Fiction; winter Tactical strength: [3/10] |
Yawn, the superpowers launch nuclear attacks and the few surviving people must deal with radiation sickness, food shortages, starving wolves, post-nuclear paramilitary forces, and nuclear winter. Sound familiar? Many have compared Swan Song to Stephen King's The Stand. Both authors kill off most of the planet's population and subject a lot of innocent paper (and people) to a mediocre story. Both these post-holocaust stories focus on the resilience of humans in the face of terrible opposition. And in both cases, the group of good people, led by a mystical leader, must oppose a group lead by a supernatural evil leader -- a cliche battle of good and evil.
McCammon, like King, uses cheap characterization techniques such as brand-name recognition -- relying on brand name products used by a character to establish that character. Also, both authors use omniscient point of view. McCammon uses a particularly offensive POV style. More than once I had to reread a paragraph because the thoughts in the characters head didn't seem to fit the character only to realize that McCammon had changed the POV from one character's head to another without any signal to the reader.
Perhaps appropriate for the horror genre, McCammon's attention to a character in an early chapter does not provide a reliable prediction about that character's longevity and importance in the plot. McCammon often starts a chapter's action with unidentified characters, such as "the man." Within a few paragraphs, McCammon starts dropping hints that he hasn't really introduced a new character, but has played hide-and-seek with one of the main characters. Eventually, McCammon drops the pretense, uses the character's name, and resumes the narrative -- slow and plodding. What did McCammon hope to gain with this technique? Perhaps he believes this method creates in literature the equivalent of seeing film characters at a distance and slowly zooming in until one can finally recognize the subjects. Whatever his purpose, he does annoy the reader.
In Swan Song, McCammon seems to propose that those well suited life in the pre-holocaust period often go insane after the holocaust, and vice versa. For example, one character Sister quickly recovers from prewar insanity and becomes the de facto religious leader of the "good guys." Lord Alvin, an imprisoned lunatic, although remaining insane, functions well in the post-holocaust society.
Don't take the change from insanity to sanity as true change of character. None of the characters in Swan Song exhibit any real change -- perhaps an increase of determination or resolve, but never change. Even young children seem to have predetermined tendencies toward good or evil. The philosophical argument might prove interesting -- too bad McCammon doesn't provide any more material to work with.
Halfway through the book, McCammon jumps the narrative forward about seven years. Since characters cannot change, the characters don't behave any differently than they did a few pages before. After this gap, McCammon increases the pace and the story finally creates some suspense. McCammon should have started the story at the point seven years after the war, using minor flashbacks to fill in the details from the first half of the book.
If you like reading overworked, overlong, post-holocaust stories, skip Swan Song; read The Stand instead.
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