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Swan Song

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Grainger's time of service was nearly up. Pilot of the marvel spaceship HOODED SWAN, the strange double-mind that occupied his brain had pulled him out of difficulties that would have doomed anyone else. But now Grainger had been warned.

This trip could be the end.

Because nobody knew what a newly created reality meant in terms of physics and chemistry... nobody but that alien parasitic mentality and it knew one thing that it could not survive that kind of flight.

Yet the existence of the HOODED SWAN might depend on exactly such a survival.

Cover by Kelly Freas

Published in 1975 by DAW.

Dedicated to Ceri
  Grainger's time of service as Star Pilot to his masters is almost complete. His extraordinary brain function aboard the starship Hooded Swan has ensured his survival through the myriad dangers of the galaxy.

But now Grainger embarks on a trip unlike anything he's done before. He has been warned that this could be his last run ... ever.

Through the galactic gateway into a parallel universe, incomprehensible in known scientific terms, Grainger enters a dimension of reality utterly alien, hostile and terrifying ...

Cover by Angus McKie

Published in 1978 by Pan.
ISBN:0-330-25400-6

 

In omnibus Swan Songs.
Translated into French as: Le Chant du Cygne.
Translated into German as: Schwanengesang; also in omnibus Die Saga vom Raumpiloten Grainger.
Translated into Japanese.

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cast of Characters:
Grainger, Titus Charlot, the wind, Sam Parks, Commander Denton, Soulier, Johnny Socoro, Eve Lapthorn, Nick delArco, Mina Vorgan.

No sooner has Grainger freed himself from Titus Charlot, than he finds himself embroiled in the New Alexandria's battle of wills with Caradoc.

The company is desperate for any information about Charlot and willing to do just about anything to get it; so Grainger is driven back to Charlot and the Hooded Swan, this time to attempt a rescue.

While Grainger had worked as pilot on a dilapidated freighter; the Sister Swan was completed and flown into the Nightingale Nebula by Eve Lapthorn, never to be heard of again.

Titus Charlot is on his last legs, but absolutely insists to be taken on a mission destined to find Grainger plumbing the mysteries of an entirely different universe.

I read the last three Hooded Swan novels in just two days, which shows how compelling these books are. Swan Song is exactly that, a fitting and in some ways melancholy end to Brian's first important series.

The Brian Stableford Website