alsoghosts 's review for:

Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

3.0

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I get all the comparisons to The Stand because these are both post-apocalyptic doorstoppers, but aside from that, a Flagg(ish) villain, and a couple people having visions of cornfields in some flyover state, they’re not that similar. This one is definitely darker just in terms of sheer Mad Max-level brutality, which is great when you're in the mood for it. I just wasn’t that invested in most of the characters, and some of the fantasy elements were just plain weird/pointless

Spoiler

(wtf was the point of Job’s Mask? Why were only some people affected? Everything’s so black and white in this book, it’s not like we didn’t already know who was Designated Good or Designated Evil. Also, who/what caused it?

or wound up being ridiculously anticlimactic

Spoiler

(don’t get me started on the glass ring macguffin, which was built up over the course of the entire book and then used for nothing by the end, and also had no explanation for who/what was behind it all)

. The writing was mostly good (minus the POV shifts from paragraph to paragraph), especially when shit hits the fan in the beginning, but don't come looking for Larry’s Lincoln Tunnel scene or a “no great loss” chapter here.

3.5 stars? Overall I did still like this. I did. But listen. All I'm saying is that I flew through The Stand in about a month. This took me seven.