Book Review: The Swarm by Sean O’Connor
Title: The Swarm
Author: Sean O’Connor
Release date: January 13, 2023
Over the last however many years, I’ve had the pleasure of discovering Sean O’Conner’s writing and the amazing world’s he creates.
Every time we get a new piece from him, two things are evident. A) It’s going to be a rollercoaster. 2) It’ll be a fantastic experience with lots of carnage.
And guess what? This is exactly what we get with his newest, ‘The Swarm.’
What I liked: ‘The Swarm’ is a story I describe as ‘The Thing’ meets ‘The Road.’ A father and his son are stranded in the artic, in the hollowed-out shell of their plane that crashed. The world has been overrun by crazy creatures that only come out at night and rip and shred all that moves and makes sound.
Sean fills this to the brim with emotions and the tug of the father-son relationship works so well to really elevate the environmental strife. He also brilliantly gives us the briefest glimmers of hope which pulls you along. The book doesn’t have much to offer in terms of bright-spots and that works so well and plays off the barren landscape to perfection, so these tiny, slivers work well.
The story goes in a few directions I didn’t really expect and as we learn a bit more about the ‘why’ we do get to see the layers of how things descended into chaos and what hopes they have of surviving.
The ending is powerful, poignant and O’Conner leaves the door open for the potential to have a follow up down the road.
What I didn’t like: While I liked the creature aspect and the human aspect of survival, what I didn’t think was expanded upon enough was the horrendous conditions they were living in and how hostile and brutal the cold truly is. With a shorter page count that’s understandable but I think a few expansions to detail about how inhospitable the surroundings are would’ve been great.
Why you should buy this: The novella as a form allows for truly great storytelling, in that, it is longer than a short story but often doesn’t suffer from the bloat of novels. O’Conner uses that to his advantage with this one. This is a fast-paced, claustrophobic, unnerving dose of frantic storytelling that can be devoured easily in a single sitting. Problem is, you’ll most likely take your time reading it in smaller bites, your body not able to handle it all at once.
Great stuff.
5/5
