Well, as much as this book was recommended to me, I know I'm going to disappoint a few people with this review, but to be honest, I thought Swan Song was fairly awful. I don't know which of the two was written first, this book or King's "The Stand", but SS is a poor work compared to what is widely regarded (rightly) as King's masterpiece. The two share some outrageous similarities, in particular the gruesome trip through a tunnel to escape from New York City, which was painful to read for me.
Still, the book diverges from King in a few ways, most notably in the fact that there doesn't really seem to be a guiding point to the story for the entire first half of this lengthy tome. I really struggled to get through the first couple of hundred pages. For those who aren't aware of either of these two novels, briefly: Both cover life in a post-apocalyptic society, and both have action that ends up resulting in New Hope for the Redemption of Humanity (tm).
While I found King's characterizations unusually strange (yet interesting), I found McCammon's characters simply one-dimensionally strange. They felt really clunky. In addition, part of what makes a story that you care about is a good villain that you fear and loathe. McCammon's main villain here is hardly more threatening than many of the other characters, which is a weakness for this kind of story. King's Flagg character is much more engaging. So, in the end, I couldn't find much to like about this. Now I'll be the first to admit that, had I not already read and reread "The Stand", I would've found this much fresher and more interesting. As it is, though, thumbs down. If you haven't read either one, go read "The Stand" and forget this one.
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