ScaryLarry
Flesh Eater
Reged: 12/11/99
Posts: 1851
Loc: Alberta
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Go fuck yourself in the ear, Danny-boy.
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EdgarAllen
Living Dead
Reged: 09/16/00
Posts: 2176
Loc: Star City
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Quote:
I've become a book whore in the last year or so. I've done more reading in the last 12 months than I did in the first 28 years of my life.
I'm currently 3/4's of the way through Robert McCammon's Swan Song. It's been said that it's similar to The Stand, but I don't see it. In my opinion The Stand is vastly superior to this story, and the only similarity would be the post apocalyptic setting.
I don't particularly care for any of McCammon's characters at this point in the story, and with so much of the novel already completed that shouldn't be the case. I don't think it's a bad novel, but I had my expectations pretty high. Swan Song was recommended to me by several people who had nothing but good things to say about it.
It's being compared to The Stand was the major selling factor for me, because that's my favorite book, but so far I ain't buyin' it...
Yeah, I often compare it to The Stand although that is quite unfair on my part as I haven't read The Stand. It's actually a bit comforting to hear someone say they really aren't similar as I am a McCammon fan and try not to think of him as a SK knock-off. It's is a lengthy novel, I don't recall too many chunks that I thought of as filler, but it was a bit like eating spaghetti as you keep eating and eating and never really feel full, so that could be frustrating. I can remember starting to grow tired of a couple of the Swan Song characters at the point in the book you are at. However, I thought the character study of the kid (can't recall his name) who's taken to the Rocky Mountain survivalist's compound was just absolutely brilliant. His story is by far what I associate the book with when I think back to it.
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"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
- Lewis Carroll
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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The kid from the survivalist bunker is named Roland. He's one of the novel's more interesting characters in my opinion. He's ruthless to say the least.
That's the thing about this book. I find myself caring more about the "bad guys" than the "good guys". I enjoy the evil character in this book most of all. He hasn't had a lot of time devoted to him as of yet, but I anticipate it all coming together in the end. From a purely visual standpoint, he's more intimidating than King's Randall Flag character. He just seems creepier, but Flag had more personality. I can't really compare the two until I'm finished with the book.
I can't get any work done today, so I'll probably finish the book some time this evening.
Im pretty impressed with McCammon's writing ability. It's nice that he doesn't need to go off into 10 page explanations for something that should only take a minute or so in real time. King's really bad for that, and it ends up being one of the few things that turn me off to his writing sytle.
Could you recommend some of McCammon's work, EA? I've gotta check out some more of his stuff so I can form a fair opinion of him...
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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EdgarAllen
Living Dead
Reged: 09/16/00
Posts: 2176
Loc: Star City
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Roland, yeah, that's him. I like how McCammon describes his particular face transformations as well. Let me know when you finish it.
Quote:
Could you recommend some of McCammon's work
I've read THEY THIRST (LA vampires) and BLUE WORLD (short stories). Really enjoyed both of those. Tried to start the THE NIGHT BOAT once, but couldn't get into it. It was one of his early books, and frankly the quality was not up to par with other novels we're talking about here. McCammon had early commercial success and has admitted that his first few novels were really him learning to write. Still I may try to revisit that book someday, it's about Nazi zombies trapped on a German sub. Also I hear good things about THE WOLF'S HOUR concerning a U.S. double agent during WWII who also happens to be a werewolf. I saw a copy of this a couple of weeks ago in the Montreal airport translated in French (of course it was in French, I was in Montreal). It just struck me as funny as I thought all of his work was out of print save his last couple of books.
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"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
- Lewis Carroll
Edited by EdgarAllen (02/23/09 10:03 PM)
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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OOP is not what I was wanting to hear. I'm not familar with book collectors, but in every other hobby OOP = too expensive.
Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a couple of used copies from amazon or ebay...
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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EdgarAllen
Living Dead
Reged: 09/16/00
Posts: 2176
Loc: Star City
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No worries, McCammon paperbacks are a dime a dozen. Good entertainment choice in these hard times. 
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"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
- Lewis Carroll
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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Quote:
No worries, McCammon paperbacks are a dime a dozen. Good entertainment choice in these hard times.
Sweet. I'm gonna hit up ebay...
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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I finally finished Swan Song, EA.
It all came together pretty nicely in the end, and I really enjoyed it. I'm definitely going to check out some more of McCammon's work...
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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EdgarAllen
Living Dead
Reged: 09/16/00
Posts: 2176
Loc: Star City
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Quote:
I finally finished Swan Song, EA.
It all came together pretty nicely in the end, and I really enjoyed it. I'm definitely going to check out some more of McCammon's work...
I liked the surprise character that showed up at the end. Thought that was a good touch.
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"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
- Lewis Carroll
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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Quote:
I liked the surprise character that showed up at the end. Thought that was a good touch.
That was a very nice touch. I still had no idea where he was going with the story, but once he did the reveal it all made perfect sense. He didn't drag out those final moments too long either. The ending chapters made the story awesome. Everything came together perfectly. I'm still extremely impressed with McCammon's ability to write villians too. Swan Song has several fantastic evil characters, and any one of them could've been the single evil entity in this story.
I honestly can't belive there's not a movie or mini-series. It would be awesome to see a 10 or 12 part HBO mini-series based on this book.
I downloaded an audio book of The Wolf's Hour last night, but the sound quality is so bad that it can't be listened to. I've got to check out more of McCammon's work, so I'm going to order The Wolf's Hour sometime today.
Maybe this one (if the price doesn't get out of hand).
http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-WOLFS-HOUR-Rober...%3A1%7C294%3A50
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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I found myself a copy of McCammon's The Wolf's Hour for $5 with free s&h on ebay. It's beat up pretty bad, but I don't care. It'll read as good as a new copy.
I was looking around for some of McCammon's other works on amazon.com and noticed that some of the paperbacks are extremely expensive even when they're used. There's a seller with a lot of 6 McCammon books, and the price is nearly $90. Isn't that a little excessive for 6 used paperbacks?
Here's the proof:
http://www.amazon.com/Titles-Robert-R-Mc...522&sr=8-20
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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EdgarAllen
Living Dead
Reged: 09/16/00
Posts: 2176
Loc: Star City
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Unless they're first prints or something, I can't imagine a reason to pay anything over cover (at the most) for a McCammon paperback, or about any other bestselling fiction author for that matter. WTF. Haven't checked online recently, but I look in used book and media stores often at horror paperbacks and they are normally quite reasonable regardless of who the writer is. Bottom line, don't be impatient, no reason to pay out the nose for this kind of product.
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"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
- Lewis Carroll
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DanielSavage
Zombie
Reged: 09/25/03
Posts: 3050
Loc: West Virginia
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Oh, make no mistakes about it. I'll definitely not be paying more than 5 or 6 bucks for a used paperback. I'm psyched to have found out about McCammon's work, but I'm not going to be doing anything foolish.
I'll wait, and hopefully I'll find copies of They Thirst and a few others for a reasonable price after a while. Until then, I'll download zombie novel ebooks and read that banged up copy of The Wolf's Hour that I found on ebay.
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Your hands are so cold, my love, beneath these leafless winter trees. Your lips are ocean blue, my love, and have ceased to call my name.
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