Okay, I’m intrigued by this. I love my end-of-the-world doorstops a la Swan Song or The Stand, and recently there have been some seriously cool apocalyptic series - Taff’s The Fearing and Daniel Barnett’s Nightmareland. While Monstre leans a little closer to the latter, Volume one weighs in at over 450 pages. The other element that makes this interesting is that we have no idea what Swan has in store for us. Are we looking at a 1,000 page trilogy? Are we set to do a Dark Tower-esque sprawling epic? The only guess I feel good about making is that it will be more than two. Book one packs a lot into these pages, but when the last page turns, there’s a sense that we’ve really only laid the groundwork.

The story is told, essentially, in two parts. The book opens up on the events that kick everything into gear - a mysterious, and supposedly impossible, accident at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) sending toxic smoke into the air. A cloud of death that just keeps spreading. The storytelling device is tough to describe here, because as much as I want to use the word “flashback” that’s just not accurate. Throughout the runtime of the book, there are multiple sections taking place on Day Zero, Day One, Day Two, etc. 

The second part takes place approximately three months later, dealing with not only the spread of the cloud, but the survivors and their plight. Even though these events take place months apart, the book runs them parallel to each other. I can’t think of any other stories I’ve read that operate in quite this manner.

I don’t want to take anything away from the monsters, or “monstres” that Swan gives our characters to contend with. They are truly nightmarish abominations, described in vivid detail that’ll make your skin crawl, and make you thankful they aren’t part of 2020’s apocalypse plans - not yet, anyway. There’s also a theory presented by one character as fact as to the origins of these beasts that leaves the reader wondering whether to accept this at face value or not. Like I said, there’s still a lot of story left.

When I said I don’t want to take anything away from the monster the author creates, it probably read like a caveat. And that’s because it is. The monsters are great, but Duncan Swan revels in exploring the  “people are the real monsters” trope. Not just in the creation of vile characters, of which there are plenty, but there are long spans of the book whether the actions and conflicts are directly related to interpersonal relations and the post-apocalyptic setting is temporarily put aside. Truth be told, these are some of the best sequences of the book and largely make the third act successful.

CW: Many readers may not care about this, and if that’s you, no worries. Skip to the last paragraph. I’m not a huge fan of books, modern ones, using the R-word, especially when it happens during narration and prose as opposed to  in dialogue. I realize it may not bother some readers, but I wanted to include this as some semblance of a content warning. I’d also add that it doesn’t happen frequently, but there are multiple occurrences throughout the book. 

Swan has the engine running on a new sprawling, epic apocalyptic story, and the most impressive thing to me, is that he’s managing to do something different here. I don’t know if I’m completely sold yet, but I am unquestionably intrigued enough to check out Volume 2 in Winter 2021. I would recommend this book to fans of world-ending doorstops, be they complete or serialized, as well as fans of survival horror - something this story pulls off quite well. The last thing I’ll say is I hope you like cliffhangers, because… 


I received a copy from the publicist for review consideration.