Helpful Score: 3
This book is a keeper! I have gone through several of the paperbacks over the years, rereading it, recommending and loaning it and finally would just like to find one in hardback to keep forever!
If you are a fan of The Stand, this may be a book you would enjoy. A Good and Evil story, end of the world/apocolypse/life-as-you-know-it is over story. One of my all time favorite books!
If you are a fan of The Stand, this may be a book you would enjoy. A Good and Evil story, end of the world/apocolypse/life-as-you-know-it is over story. One of my all time favorite books!
Helpful Score: 3
In a word- epic. This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's a post apocalyptic masterpiece. The characters are unforgettable. The plot is fascinating. It's horrifying and bleak and desolate yet uplifting and beautiful at the same time. To mention 'The Stand' and 'Swan Song' in the same sentence is laughable and insulting. 'Swan Song' absolutely blows 'The Stand' out of the water.
Helpful Score: 2
This book was recommended to me based on the fact that I liked Stephen King's The Stand. It was readable, but went on a little too long for me with its 956 pages. I just wasn't engrossed in the reading. It was a lot like The Stand, but the horror genre is really not one I'm too fond of. I do know people who LOVED Swan Song, so don't let my review keep you from reading it.
Helpful Score: 1
I really liked this book,great end of the world type. It had good characters, good writing and kept you on the edge of your seat. Chewed a few fingernails I did.
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book! This book has everything in it: terror, romance, the end of the world, a new beginning, unlikely friendships. There is nothing bad I could say about this book. It is similar to "The Stand" by Stephen King, but I thought Swan Song was even better! I read it when it first came out and it is one of those that I revisit every few years... I don't think I will ever get tired of it.
Helpful Score: 1
This is a post-apocalyptic story about several different groups of individuals struggling to survive in a post-nuclear environment. The story was entertaining, and I really enjoyed some of the characters - especially Paul Thorson. It wasn't great in my opinion - especially when compared to The Stand. I felt that the book was a bit longer than it needed to be. I thought that it was a very fast read.
I have read this book three times over the past 20 years. It is a detailed and colorful account of a tragic future. I would recommend this book as you won't be able to put it down.
this is honestly one book that they should make a movie out of. Very good written visuals and excellent plot. My favorite book
This is one of my all time favorites. I felt it was much better than The Stand and I am a Stephen King fan. The characters are rich and engaging and the plot moves smoothly. I have read it twice even though I am a very slow reader and it is a rather long book.
This is one of my favorite books of all time! It is a long book but I read it in a week-end. Now this would be a movie to see...
Excellent book. Right up there with The Stand by Stephen King. If you like end of the world story lines this is a must read!
Very good. I read this many years ago and I don't remember too many details about this book except that I very much enjoyed it and I would definatly read it again, all 900+ pages of it.
This is an exceptional book. Very different from Stephen King's the Stand but just as good. I really enjoyed this book!
This is one of my favorite books of all time. Very exciting, couldn't put it down.
This is a story about good vs evil.
One man who may or may not be the devil lives for hopelessness, is fueled by misery and suffering. Patiently he waits for the end of civilization. For his party to start. When it does he's stoked. Not only because it's time to party, but he didn't even have to lift a finger to bring it about.
This evil man - the man with many faces, or Doyle Halland or The Man with the Scarlet Eye, whatever you want to call him- expects for there to be pain and suffering, rape, murder, bloodshed, overall inhumanity. And he gets it. Oh, yes he gets that in spades. But what he doesn't expect is for, amidst this chaos, hope to blossom.
On the evil side we have a has-been of a colonel desperate to reclaim days of glory long since passed. This man's name is Colonel Macklin. His second is a young man named Roland Croninger who I despised almost from the word go. He's in evil little twat that I hoped to hell died a painful death. You'll understand why when you read Swan Song yourself. Or, if you have, then you understand perfectly well what I'm talking about.
There are others who are evil in this story, but the main focus is on Macklin and Croninger, along with the man with many faces.
On the good side the main players are Josh, Swan, Sister, Artie, Paul, and Robin. Hope lies with Swan and her amazing ability to heal the land.
Our main baddie - the man with the scarlet eye- first realizes there is something up when he comes upon Sister and a mysterious ring of melded jewels. Sister gets away and so he chases after, searching far and wide for that mysterious trinket so that he can crush it and really kick off his party. In his journey he learns of Swan and her gift. A stark and unbelievably good story gets even better from there. If the pedal wasn't fully to the metal before that then it certainly is from that point on.
Every character - big or small - is fully evolved. Every step they take, sight they see, smell they smell, every bit of pain they feel you feel. The many settings witnessed in this story are brought to vivid life. You're right there. On every single page. There is never a lag, lull, drowsy bit of filling - nothing like that at all.
There are characters you will hate, characters you will love and you will not want the story to end. You just won't. You'll want it to last forever. In saying that, this book is gritty. It's real. It's violent. No one gets an easy path. Terrible things will happen. You will be shocked. For stories like this some people like to give trigger-warnings. I've never done that because there are some books where you should expect bad things to happen, and this is one of them. But in saying that, one thing did happen that I was not expecting and was horrified to read.
-Spoilers-
A very bad, very evil man uses the butt of a gun to crush an infants skull in.
Yes I was shocked. Did it anger me? You bet it did. Did I stop reading? No. I didn't. Because I don't do pc bull. What came before that scene was gritty and real, and what came after was much the same. I was mad the character did what he did. Not for the author for writing it because I understood what he was going for and he delivered a difficult scene perfectly. It was not done for simple shock value.
-end of spoiler-
Every moment is tense.
Every moment is incredibly real.
This is a master class in writing.
One man who may or may not be the devil lives for hopelessness, is fueled by misery and suffering. Patiently he waits for the end of civilization. For his party to start. When it does he's stoked. Not only because it's time to party, but he didn't even have to lift a finger to bring it about.
This evil man - the man with many faces, or Doyle Halland or The Man with the Scarlet Eye, whatever you want to call him- expects for there to be pain and suffering, rape, murder, bloodshed, overall inhumanity. And he gets it. Oh, yes he gets that in spades. But what he doesn't expect is for, amidst this chaos, hope to blossom.
On the evil side we have a has-been of a colonel desperate to reclaim days of glory long since passed. This man's name is Colonel Macklin. His second is a young man named Roland Croninger who I despised almost from the word go. He's in evil little twat that I hoped to hell died a painful death. You'll understand why when you read Swan Song yourself. Or, if you have, then you understand perfectly well what I'm talking about.
There are others who are evil in this story, but the main focus is on Macklin and Croninger, along with the man with many faces.
On the good side the main players are Josh, Swan, Sister, Artie, Paul, and Robin. Hope lies with Swan and her amazing ability to heal the land.
Our main baddie - the man with the scarlet eye- first realizes there is something up when he comes upon Sister and a mysterious ring of melded jewels. Sister gets away and so he chases after, searching far and wide for that mysterious trinket so that he can crush it and really kick off his party. In his journey he learns of Swan and her gift. A stark and unbelievably good story gets even better from there. If the pedal wasn't fully to the metal before that then it certainly is from that point on.
Every character - big or small - is fully evolved. Every step they take, sight they see, smell they smell, every bit of pain they feel you feel. The many settings witnessed in this story are brought to vivid life. You're right there. On every single page. There is never a lag, lull, drowsy bit of filling - nothing like that at all.
There are characters you will hate, characters you will love and you will not want the story to end. You just won't. You'll want it to last forever. In saying that, this book is gritty. It's real. It's violent. No one gets an easy path. Terrible things will happen. You will be shocked. For stories like this some people like to give trigger-warnings. I've never done that because there are some books where you should expect bad things to happen, and this is one of them. But in saying that, one thing did happen that I was not expecting and was horrified to read.
-Spoilers-
A very bad, very evil man uses the butt of a gun to crush an infants skull in.
Yes I was shocked. Did it anger me? You bet it did. Did I stop reading? No. I didn't. Because I don't do pc bull. What came before that scene was gritty and real, and what came after was much the same. I was mad the character did what he did. Not for the author for writing it because I understood what he was going for and he delivered a difficult scene perfectly. It was not done for simple shock value.
-end of spoiler-
Every moment is tense.
Every moment is incredibly real.
This is a master class in writing.
An ancient evil roams the blasted, nightmare country, an evil as old as time. He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, the Man of Many Faces, gathering under his power the forces of human greed and madness. He is seeking to destroy a child, the one called Swan!
I enjoyed this book. It's 956 pages so it lasted a little while. Here is part of the blurb at the begining of the book.
In the wasteland of New York City, a bag lady clutches a strange bejeweled ring and feels magic coursing through her...
Within an Idaho mountain, a survivalist compound lies in ruins, and a young boy learns how to kill...
In a wasteland born of nuclear rage, in a world of mutant animals and marauding armies, three bands of survivors journey toward destiny-drawn into the final struggle between annihilation and life!
In the wasteland of New York City, a bag lady clutches a strange bejeweled ring and feels magic coursing through her...
Within an Idaho mountain, a survivalist compound lies in ruins, and a young boy learns how to kill...
In a wasteland born of nuclear rage, in a world of mutant animals and marauding armies, three bands of survivors journey toward destiny-drawn into the final struggle between annihilation and life!
very good book, cover a little worn but very usable.
The cover on my book is worn and ripped at the corner. The pages are in great shape. This is my VERY favorite book!!! Read it & lent it out many times over!! My daughter & I both thought it was better than The Stand.
