A review by andrew_corduroy
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This took me so long to get through. Partially because I am easily distracted by other, shorter books when faced with something as thick as this, but also because Robert McCammon wrote something so viscerally plausible that I could only read chunks at a time. It’s dark. At times very dark,

with even the character of a devil incarnate doing less than some of the humans.

Book One was the slow part. There are very tense parts that I ate up

(the wolves and supermarket scenes especially)

but the majority was slow. Once I started Book Two I got pulled in and finished the book much faster than anticipated.

The characters are strongly written, well-defined and clearly fleshed out. The noble and ignoble alike get their time. The setting is thoughtfully explored and no details are spared (it’s 900 pages, of course there’s people emptying shit-buckets) and despite the fact it took me 4 months to read, I genuinely think that I’ll spend time thinking about it well after I finish it.

If you like post-apocalyptic fiction, you should read this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Murder, and War

Moderate: Confinement, Suicide, and Cannibalism