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Swan Song (McCammon novel)Swan Song is a 1987 horror novel by American novelist Robert R. McCammon. It is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction describing the aftermath of a nuclear war that provokes an evolution in humankind. Swan Song won the 1987 Bram Stoker award (tied with Misery).

Plot
The novel begins with nuclear war breaking out between the submarine fleets of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The President, wracked with guilt over his role in the carnage, prepares to input a series of codes into a computer for the activation of an unknown device known only as "Talons". Seconds before the activation process can be completed, a burning Greyhound bus, sent flying by the shock waves of the nuclear blasts below, smashes through the Airborne Command Post and causes it to crash. The novel follows three groups of characters in the aftermath of the war.

After his car breaks down at a Kansas gas station, wrestler Josh Hutchins meets a 9-year-old girl named Sue Wanda (Swan) and her mother. The three take cover in the gas station's basement along with the clerk, PawPaw, after missiles are launched from hidden silos nearby. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Roland Croninger is taken by his parents to Blue Dome Mountain, a survivalist fallout shelter run by Colonel James "Jimbo" Macklin. An off-course Minuteman missile detonates nearby, severely damaging Blue Dome. Finally, in New York City, a homeless woman named Sister Creep wanders through the ruins, discovering a mysterious glass ring. She encounters an antagonistic shapeshifting being called "The Man With The Scarlet Eye", and finds herself dodging him on her subsequent travels.

In Kansas, Swan's mother and PawPaw both die, but not before PawPaw tells Josh to "protect the Child". Soon after, Josh notices that there is grass growing where Swan slept in their shelter, realizing that she has special powers. They soon meet Leona Skelton, a psychic whose husband, Davy, is dying of radiation poisoning. Leona reads Swan's future with tarot cards and predicts that she is going to face the Devil. After Davy dies, Leona joins their group. The three later come across a strangely well-lit and well-stocked K-Mart, which turns out to be a trap laid by escaped inmates from a nearby mental hospital. After a fatally wounded Leona sacrifices herself to allow Josh and Swan to escape, the pair find an abandoned circus train and befriend Rusty, an ex-rodeo rider/clown.

At Blue Dome, Roland is recruited into rescuing Macklin from a life-threatening situation. Eventually Macklin faces an armed revolt by a former follower, Schorr, which includes Roland's parents. Macklin and Roland kill the insurgents and escape the compound, traveling south to Salt Lake, Utah. There, the duo secure a deal to join a survivor community led by an individual called The Fat Man. Soon afterwards, however, Roland kills The Fat Man when the latter attempts to drug and rape him. Macklin and Roland subsequently take over the community.

After they leave New York through the Holland Tunnel, all but one of Sister's survivor group is massacred by The Man With the Scarlet Eye. Sister escapes west, where she is rescued from a wolf attack by Paul Thorsen, a divorced ex-professor turned mountain man. Sister and Paul spend the next seven years criss-crossing the irradiated wasteland of postwar America, following visions Sister sees through the glass ring. In that time, both of them � as well as the other principal characters � eventually develop "Job's Mask", a gradual tumor-like disfigurement which covers the head in fleshy tissue.

In seven years, Macklin and Roland forge their group into the Army of Excellence (AOE), which expands east and raids settlements for supplies. Roland has assumed leadership of the AOE, with Macklin serving as a figurehead. They decide to take the AOE to West Virginia's Warwick Mountain upon hearing from a torture subject, Brother Timothy, that another army is heading there. Brother Timothy claims that God sheltered him at Warwick Mountain and he has a silver key, a phrase, and a black box that could destroy the world. Meanwhile, Sister and Paul meet Hugh Ryan, an alcoholic former doctor who lost his leg to an AOE attack years prior. Hugh convinces Sister to let him join her and Paul. Later they meet a group of orphans led by 17-year-old Robin Oates, and earn the orphans' trust after the glass ring helps Hugh successfully perform surgery on a young boy.

Swan, Josh, and Rusty, performing as traveling entertainers, stop at a house in the middle of an orchard where all the trees save for one has been cut down. The couple in the house explain that the one tree was special and that they just didn't have the heart to cut down. Swan places her hands on the tree and is shocked to feel it is still alive. She uses her powers to "wake up" the tree, causing it to be covered with blossoms the next morning. The Man with the Scarlet Eye finds out about Swan and decides that she is a threat to him, travelling to her group's next stop at the settlement of Mary's Rest. There, he nearly kills an incapacitated Swan, but Rusty interferes and is fatally burned as a result.

Upon arriving in Mary's Rest with Paul, Sister realizes that the ring has been leading her to Swan. When Swan touches the ring, she sees a vision of a land covered with plants, orchards, fruit, and flowers, realizing this is her life's goal. The vision causes Swan's Job's Mask to break up and fall off, revealing a beautiful woman with fiery red hair. Other people's Job's Masks are also healed. Josh becomes close with a local woman, Glory, and her son Aaron. Swan and Robin begin to fall in love. Aaron figures out how to use the dowsing rod, Crybaby, and it indicates a source of fresh untainted water. The man with the apple tree drives into town with a truckload of ripe apples and tosses them to a happy crowd. Swan and the residents of Mary's Rest decide to plant an apple orchard to go along with the cornfield, which sprung up almost overnight and is growing vigorously.

The Man with the Scarlet Eye introduces himself as �Friend

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