Swan Song: A Review

Robert McCammon's Swan Song is a horror-mystical apocalyptic novel set during and after a global thermonuclear war.

Robert McCammon (1952-) From Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the important horror novels of the late 1970s thorough early 1990s.  By 1991 he had had three best sellers, including Swan Song (1987).  Swan Song, along with his later Mine, and Boy's Life, won the Brahm Stoker Award. 

To be honest, it is telling of what was considered "quality" in the horror genre of the time, that such long, turgid prose is thought to be honorary, rather than commercial.  It was the time of Anne Rice's ever lengthening vampire tales, and Steven King's long novels ruled the day.

Well let us move on to The Blurb:

An ancient evil roams the desolate landscape of an America ravaged by nuclear war.

He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, a malevolent force that feeds on the dark desires of the countless followers he has gathered into his service. His only desire is to find a special child named Swan -- and destroy her. But those who would protect the girl are determined to fight for what is left of the world and their souls.

In a wasteland born of rage, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, the last survivors on earth have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil that will decide the fate of humanity....

The evil is literally a demon of some sort, and the good guys have a magic crown that helps bring warmth and hope to the weary. There are Peter Pan and the Lost Boys Robin and his orphan bandits, with a little prodding from the miraculous crown/emergency surgical instrument,  can be counted on to help the good guys, .  And...all sorts of mumbo jumbo. 

The magical elements start somewhat low key at the start of the novel, and the nuclear Armageddon is horrific enough in a somewhat realistic way.  But as the novel slowly gets moving, and I mean very slowly gets moving, the mystical element becomes more pronounced.  If you have set yourself the goal of owning every novel that features an evil crazy clown, you will need to own this novel. And there is a bunch of magical mumbo jumbo.  I mean yes, eally!  They have a magical far seeing, visionary crown, and it gets pressed into service as a surgical tool!

Most modern authority figures, including those of established Christianity and military figures come out looking fairly poorly in the process. The main warm and fuzzy comes from the little folk of all races working together, and with convenient magical help, to make a little homestead in the destitution.  It has a bit dated of a feel.  The only homosexual is a Nazi uniform wearing out of control pedophile.  No sacrificial gay heroes in this one.

It all ends up in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, on a penultimate last confrontation between the evil army and the atomic "god" that sits atop a mountain.  A few good guys will die, just to make things interesting, if you can call very long dying moment soliloquies interesting. But it is all fairly obvious how it is all going to come out in the end.  The only, slightly interesting question, is the exact mechanics.

This novel makes a fair number of "favorite" apocalyptic novel lists.  It won't be on mine.  It is dated, sloppy, and overly long. It is maudlin and overwrought to the point where it slams you like a body blow, leaving you stunned and shaken; obviously some folks like that.

We now come to our two descriptive (not qualitative) ratings: 1 to 7 with 4 the mid-point and 7 high. Realism does not include the cause of the collapse or apocalypse, but is otherwise an assessment of how close to today's world is the setting. Could you imagine your friends, or families living through the situation. Readability is not literary merits, but literally how quick and painless of a read.

Realism?  Is there any?  Is Tolkien realistic?  There is some lip service to supplies, and their necessity, but very little real evidence as to the lack of supplies.  People are able to live off leftover canned goods seven years after the fact. And the evil army has no issues with stale gas. Or ammo shortages.  Somehow after 7 years of overcast nuclear winter, there is still a fair amount of activity. You get sergeants named (phonetically) Sh_t Pants.  The larger battles are insanely simplistic, with absolutely no concept of the deadliness of modern weaponry.  While there are no elves, there are demons, and magic mirrors, and crowns, and.... whatever; Its a 1.

Readability suffers from length.  How the horror fans of the day could deal with these slow moving stories is beyond me, but the slow pacing gets to be like nails on a chalk board after a while.  This is not a page turner, unless your just desperate to finish it.  There is a fair amount of muddled mysticism.  Most of it doesn't really go very far, but it does add an element of confusion.  It's a 2.

California: A Review

 Edan Lepucki's California is an apocalyptic novel set in the northern woodlands of California, and retrospectively in Los Angeles.  It is a slow economic/environmental collapse which gives it a feeling of being both an apocalypse-in-progress and post-apocalyptic at the same time: it all depends on which direction in time your looking in.

Edan Lepucki was born (~1980) and raised in Los Angelos, where she know lives with her husband, Patrick Brown, and their very cute little boy.  She graduated from Oberlin College, which is the basis for the novel's (Walden Pond meets Ag. School) Plank College.  She currently writes for  The Millions, teaches creative writing, and is a recovered social media junky.

 

This is her first published novel, and is noteworthy for being at the front line of the ongoing [at this writing] battle between Amazon and Hatchette Book Group which made it initially hard to come by.  There is some irony as, her above noted husband, Patrick Brown is employed at Good Reads (since February of 2010): currently as  Director of Author Marketing, and Goodreads was gobbled up bought by Amazon last year:  LOL/ouch - both of them are pretty quite about that one.

 

The collapsing world of California is something of a gelling of earlier apocalyptic writings of literary set (as exemplified by Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler): a slow economic strangulation caused by environmental and political collapse.  The misery is, of course, not shared equally.  It is not a perfect scenario, it begs a lot of questions as to how all the technology keeps going with such a small basis for production, and tends to ignore the obviously logistics (ie. fuel) issues of keeping a system going with the reduced cost sharing.  But I like the scenario.

The gradual collapse scenario seems to fit in better within the current world we live in than the various militia, instant pandemics, zombies, or one-week banking collapse scenarios commonly postulated.  You don't really even have to buy into the specific causes to go along with the story.  The world is sucky, and going to get worse: easy enough.

 

The novel starts with an almost-30 year couple, Cal and Frida,  who are living in the woods in Northern California after having made an escape run from Los Angeles.  They are surviving, if not thriving, when the young woman finds out she is pregnant.  This opens a whole can of worms.

The pregnancy forces the couple to try and find a larger group of folks where there will be a little more stability.  But once you add in more people, you add intrigue.  And more so than in most survivalist tales, it is a lot more about who is on whose side that matters, than tactics and supplies.

So although the dire setting is important, the focus of the story is on the relationship of the husband and wife in these very changed circumstances, first on there own in the woods, and then with a new community they find. Per the author:

“The tension in the book is something I’m really thankful for as a writer,” Lepucki says. Because so much of the novel investigates the unknowable distance between two people, Lepucki notes, “What I wanted to write was a domestic drama…I love social interaction and writing about that. Intimacy and the way people speak to each other and don’t speak to each other.” She is also interested in secrets, and in her fiction—and specifically in California—likes to “toss them out, left and right, like bombs everywhere.” Kirkus, Edan Lupanski,  10 July 2014.

At first I took her style to be a little too light and breezy.  The details of survival were a little thin. Cal had farming/gardening experience, and Frida can bake, but it all seemed a little too easy.  But as the story progresses, you come to realize that the "ease" is more one of insufficient observation, particularly on the part of Frida, than reality-based.  No one is doing well:  not the pirates, the small homesteaders, the nea-anarchist terrorists, or the walled off suburban enclaves.  It is falling apart, granted a differing speeds, for everyone.

What is particularly interesting is to see a set of protagonists with a "progressive-liberal" mind set, and an author we likely shares that mindset, with a story that is honest enough to point out that good intentions don't necessarily bring good results.

I did like the novel.  Frida and Cal are, in very different ways, social innocents.  There lack of savvy amongst strangers does induce some teeth grinding moments.  To some degree, their cluelessness undercuts the above noted theme of secrecy between people who are ostensibly on the same side.  It becomes more an issue of really bad social tactics than secrecy per se.  But the novel ends with a flourish, and it all raps up in a nice little dystopian package in the end.

We now come to our two descriptive (not qualitative) ratings: 1 to 7 with 4 the mid-point and 7 high. Realism does not include the cause of the collapse or apocalypse, but is otherwise an assessment of how close to today's world is the setting. Could you imagine your friends, or families living through the situation. Readability is not literary merits, but literally how quick and painless of a read.

Realism is high if slightly suffering for its breezing over the catastrophe itself.   Cal has the necessary skills to make a sustainable garden grow, but there is no sugar coating around the possibility of one bad season wiping them out.  That alliances and group antagonisms will go a long way toward deciding long term survivors.  But it is interesting that the author doesn't loss sight of the need for basic survival skills.  In a land without food, the farmer is everyone's friend.  It is a six.

Readability is tough.  There was a fair amount of philosophical discussion at various points.  Mostly bringing up various communist-anarchist and other early rebellious type thinkers.  I didn't have time to look them up, but I suspect that all of this adds a second level to the proceedings that I was missing.  A battle of philosophies as outlines by the activities of the various groups.  So I would not call it an entirely straight forward delivery.  Call it a literary 5.

 

Edan Lupucki

An excuse to buy more ammo?

There has been, a pretty reasonably well proven, idea out there that buying more stuff doesn't make you happier in the long run.  So you buy your heavy barrel .17 varmint rifle with supper cool scope, and your happy for a moment.  But pretty quickly you absorb this new gadget into what makes you you, and your no happier than you when you started.

But if you buy experiences (Vacations seems to be a big one), you remember them better, and to some extent they actually reset your happiness quotient higher.  You are the not just the schlep that you were, you are the schlep who has cool vacations!

Well some sociologist had a thought.  What about buying items that are used to have experiences.

Actually, Some Material Goods Can Make You Happy
Rebecca J. Rosen, The Atlantic, 1 August 2014 (hat tip: MR)

Here's the problem, as Guevarra and Howell see it: In many studies, participants are asked to think about material items as purchases made "in order to have," in contrast with experiences—purchases made "in order to do." This, they say, neglects a category of goods: those made in order to have experiences,  such as electronics, musical instruments, and sports and outdoors gear. Do such "experiential goods," as Guevarra and Howell call them, leave our well-being unimproved, as is the case with most goods, or do they contribute positively to our happiness?

In a series of experiments, Guevarra and Howell find that the latter is the case: experiential goods made people happier, just like the experiences themselves.

Now of course, I am the one raising the firearms issue.

So as I see it, you don't need more weapons, you need more ammo and range time.  And if anyone asks you why your buying all that ammo, just tell them you are on the road to happiness.

Peak farmers' markets

The growth of new farmers markets is slowing up.

I saw this interesting chart at Vox.



Note this is growth rate, which indicates the increase has hit a plateau.  For the absolute numbers chart go here.

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems a little soon for this to be happening if the local sourcing food movement is actually going to become a dominant trend.  This looks more like a fad that has finally reached most of its easily served foodies.  And I say this as someone who rather likes farmers' markets.