Swan Song by Robert McCammon

 My husband has been trying to get me to read this book for the last 15 years.  Poor husband. Although, in my defense, there are a couple of really good reasons that it took me so long to read it. First, he made the mistake of comparing it to Stephen King's The Stand. It's actually a fair comparison but I didn't much like The Stand, so it wasn't really an encouraging statement. Second, it's an post apocalyptic door stopper. I'm pretty eclectic reader. I'll take on anything in theory but some sorts of books hit me hard in the mood and I've learned to be judicious about when I read them lest it leave me in a real funk. Several times I tried reading Swan Song only to find myself devolving into a real crappy mood. So I put it down. I put it down several times. Finally, third, Swan Song starts with a really awful first chapter. In a world of literature, it's got to be one of the top 10 worst first chapters. 

All that aside, rando chose Swan Song for me, I'm really trying to abide by the random choice system, and I sunk a week and a half into reading it. I finally got past that awful first chapter. The story spans about eight years starting with a doomsday nuclear scenario between the U.S. and Russia. There are six or seven characters that get followed from the crisis through the fallout and nuclear winter that follows.

There's a lot of good things about Swan Song, in fact there are a lot of things that make it a better book than The Stand. Most of the characters are all very engaging. Most of them are very normal people put in extraordinary circumstances and they react in believable ways for better or worse. There are a lot of examples of excellent people who become better more pure examples of themselves and there are plenty of examples of people descending into chaos. 

There are some pretty heavy theological themes running through the book. There is a personified force of evil and there is a pretty clear idea of an inner spirit or soul being an almost tangible thing. In fact, there are quite a lot of fantasy elements riddled throughout. There is one character who has a magical ability with plants able to get them to grow in adverse situations. There's another with a magical ring of glass that lets her see visions of distant places.

The whole thing builds to this massive, odd watershed moment where a decision has to be made for the human race. Extinction? or muddle on as they are?  

So, over all impression - pretty positive. I liked the story; I liked the characters. I still had to take a lot of mood breaks to read something lighter. It's a pretty grim book and there are precious few moments of levity, but it's worth it. I do worry though that, much like The Stand, I'm going to have a heard time remembering any details in six month.

If that happens, I guess I can always read it again in 15 years.