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The Swarm
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The Swarm - Frank Schatzing
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Rating: 3.5 starsI read this for my COVID read. It is a sci-fi thriller about an apocalyptic turn of events that occurs after a new species of worm is discovered in the oceans. Sea creatures begin acting strangely, tsunamis happen, and epidemics plague the population. I was intimidated by the size of this tome and its nearly 900 pages. It does read fast, however, due to large amounts of dialogue, building suspense, and lots of action. Like Kristel said, it does read as though it was intended for the screen.
I enjoyed the majority of this book, but it got way too far-fetched toward the end, and I stopped caring about the fates of the characters.
read Feb. 2022I have to admit that I often wondered (between reading sessions of this book) why this book is on the list. This novel is a thriller in the same class as “The DaVinci Code”. So, yes, over all it was fun and I was (mostly) engaged. I think the premise was very good. He definitely wrote it with the movie rights in mind.
However… (and you knew there would be some ‘buts’)… This book is in serious need of an editor. I’m sure you could have easily chopped at least 100 pages out without any damage to the narrative (maybe even 200). The epilogue should have been the first thing cut. The characters were not particularly well developed, and some were very close to offensive stereotypes. Also, why are most of the scientists men? This book does pass the Bechdel test, but I was curious enough about that early on to check on it.
Finally, the biggest thing that stuck in my craw happened early on. The second chapter takes place on Vancouver Island (I grew up there!), specifically in Tofino (I’m very familiar with Tofino!). This was Schatzing’s first gigantic error (maybe it was the translator?? to be fair) happens – he describes the forest around Tofino as being ‘pines’! Yikes. WTF. Those are not pines, man – they’re firs. Obviously Schatzing did A LOT of research for this novel (you know that because he did a big brain dump of all his info rather than editing). Why did this mistake happen? It is repeated when a character looks out a window at the Chateau at Whistler. I think this is just sloppy. 3*
Valerie wrote: "Those are not pines, man – they’re firs. Obviously Schatzing did A LOT of research for this novel (you know that because he did a big brain dump of all his info rather than editing). Why did this mistake happen? It is repeated when a character looks out a window at the Chateau at Whistler. I think this is just sloppy. 3*"LOL! That is the kind of thing I found funny as well. The one that made me laugh was when one of the characters say something like "lemmings commit suicide" and the 'smart scientist' jumps in with "no they don't actually, they are just hive mind idiots who follow each other off the cliff...gotcha!" and....both of those are wrong lol. That finding has never been replicated outside of the nature doc that it was revealed later....corralled them off a cliff to get the footage they were expecting. yikes. I've worked in marine biology labs so I tried to put that level of standards aside, but there were enough biology and general errors to take me out of it.
Agree with everyone else here that it seems like a generic paperback thriller that wants to be a movie. The only thing that saved this from scoring lower with me, is that I think the idea of on oceanic hivemind, or asking what would people do and how would we behave if we weren't the only sentient life form on earth is interesting. The execution could have been better. I get that maybe they wanted a book on here to represent the popular thriller genre- but why this one specifically? The writing and research isn't remarkable and it (at least in North America) wasn't that famous either. I think Cryptonomicon did a marginally better job at representing this genre- even though I didn't really like that one either. And there is definitely better and more impactful sci-fi that could be put on the list.
Like Kristel I gave this one a low 3 stars.
This science fiction eco-thriller was just barely a three star read for me. There are some interesting sections. The premise is of nature ,tired of humans destructiveness, goes on the attack was good and it was informative on how the ocean functions and the importance of the ocean to life on earth in general. The book takes place all over the world, wherever there are oceans. Characters were mostly scientists, military or political. Countries featured included Norway and Canada. The United States contributed the military and political characters and not in any favorable light. The presidential character was a caricature of Bush. This German author did not paint a nice picture of the U.S. The main story was interesting, there are many protagonists and minor characters that come and go (mostly die) and there was whole sections of just words, words, words. The translation was full of edit errors. The author brought in Samantha Crowe from SETI (Jodi Foster character in Contact). The book reads as if it was written for the screen and reportedly there is a film in the works.