The story begins with a devastating nuclear exchange, the culmination of humanity’s ancient “love affair with fire.” As the world devolves into a toxic wasteland marked by acid rain, dwindling food supplies, and an endless nuclear winter, a large cast of characters struggle to rebuild their lives in a barren, utterly hostile landscape. Among the more memorable of these are Sister Creep, a former bag lady, Josh Hutchins, a wrestler once known as “Black Frankenstein,” Roland Croniger, a young boy who learns to become a savage killer, and the terrifying, possibly demonic “Man with the Scarlet Eye.” Most centrally, Swan Song tells the story of Sue Wanda Prescott, AKA Swan, whose nascent ability to restore the health of the ravaged earth may, in time, lead to the salvation of the human species.