Customer Reviews

Armageddon Rag

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It seems quite appropriate that praise from Stephen King can be found on the back of this book. Like many of King's better novels, the "Rag", doesn't seem like a horror novel at the start. Instead, we are given an engaging mystery set in a real-life setting. But as you continue to turn the pages, you begin to get the sense that something is definitely not right, and eventually, we encounter the supernatural.

I highly recommend this book, but as I write this review, the question I ask myself is, "Exactly *whom* would I recommend it to?" When I first picked up the Rag, I was dubious. Of course I loved Song of Ice and Fire, and I found myself quite impressed with most of Martin's horror and sci-fi works as well... But I didn't have much confidence in an out-of-print horror book with a hippie/seventies/classic rock setting.

Fortunately, I read it anyway, or I would have missed out on one fabulous book.
But will YOU like it?
-If you occasionally find yourself enjoying episodes of VH1's Behind The Music, or the movie Almost Famous, you will appreciate Martin's meticulous attention to the music industry.
-If you are a fan of Stephen King, The Rag will make you feel right at home.
-And, if you've enjoyed any of Martin's other writings, you're sure to approve of his style here as well.

The bottom-line is, this is one book that truly doesn't deserve to be out-of-print, and thanks to Martin's rocketing popularity- it soon won't be. As soon as you can, give it a try!

By now, this has to be a classic in the fantasy/horror field. I remember picking it up in as price-reduced overstock, simply for the astonishing artwork (the german edition) and that title. I have to say, that I'm still very thankful for that occasion. Not only has Mr. Martin delivered the best Werewolf-Novellla of all time (Skintrade) but the Song of Fire and Ice Series, that had reignited my interest in Fantasy after 15 years.

Thank you Mr. Martin.

I want a hardcover-reprint of this book. Now.

George R.R. Martin's science fiction novels and short stories strike a resonant chord with compelling, flesh and blood, characters and a real sense of their time... even if that time is thousands of years in the future after a human diaspora into outer space, where many of his tales are set. That sense of time and place is a strength... and weakness, in Armageddon Rag, taking place with a history that really existed and with which the reader is already familiar. This time, we stand at the uncertain, disillusioned dawn of the 1980s, looking back on the chaos of the '60s and '70s, but with the renaissance of the '80s and '90s yet to come. The sad meanderings of the book's former flower children and their yearning for their past delusions are heart wrenching. It's understandable some turn to a bizarre plan to resurrect the Nazgul, a Tolkein tinged, Doors-esque super group whose bloody dissolution years before is part of Armageddon Rag's lush "back story." The sinister truth behind the reunion unravels in a narrative that is both a wistful personal journey and an intriguing mystery. The trouble with the book is that it is so very much a work of its time. In 1980, it would have felt right on. Today, it seems surprisingly dated. Even then, the ex-hippies' lingering desire to destroy the "military-industrial complex," tear America apart, and promote world socialism seemed amusingly anachronistic. Today, after free enterprise's success at bringing prosperity to billions of people, the West's victory in the Cold War and the implosion of the Soviet Union, let alone AIDS, it seems preposterous and makes it hard to muster sympathy for these would-be revolutionaries, including the hero. Even with those shortcomings, Martin's narrative style is mesmerizing and his characters vividly alive, from the conflicted storyteller himself, to the doomed holdouts in the commune... to Froggy the Gremlin. If you can disregard the cobwebs on the protagonist's mindset, Armageddon Rag is a seductive treat.

I love Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series as much as the next person who loves morally complicated and narratively complex fantasy, but I will admit that the only reason I have this book is because someone at the publisher's booth gave it to me for free at the first New York Comic Convention, which was more than a few years ago. It's been sitting in the queue ever since. My copy is actually signed too, which I had forgotten about. Extra bonus!

So in a cost-for-entertainment analysis the book wins hands down. But what about a time-for-entertainment analysis? How does it make out there?

Not bad, actually. In what wasn't a departure for him at the time, the novel is basically a very subtle horror piece, but the kind that doesn't involve wolves or vampires or mummies. Instead, it brings forth kind of an existential problem: "Did I do all of that for nothing?"

The story is basically the aftermath of a 1960s counterculture that we always knew about but is slightly skewed. Sandy Blair is a fellow who was active in the sixties protesting and trying to mess with the system, only to now be much older and finding that the system kind of won, writing hack novels and wishing that he felt more fulfilled. Leaping on a chance to do a story for a magazine he once started about the murder of a promoter for perhaps the most famous rock band you've never heard of, he embarks on a long journey across the United States, and by doing so, travels deep into the tattered soul of the country.

Sort of. The main portion of the novel consists of Sandy visiting old friends in turn, many of which he hasn't spoken to in years, and thus discovering what they've been up to since those idealistic hippie days. In most cases, they haven't quite been living the dream, which sits better with some than with others. Some have turned to other forms for peace, withdrawing from the world entirely. Some have just said the heck with it and wholeheartedly part of the system. And some are doing what they can to change the world, just on a smaller scale and at a slower pace, but getting tired in the process. Because nothing really lasts forever.

If that was all the novel was about, it would be nothing more than a trifle, because it's nothing we haven't seen dealt with in other, more prominent places, and probably with a bit more sharpness. The idea of the grand views of the people who grew up in the sixties finding their fine goals and visions crashing on the rocky shores of the seventies and gasping for air before expiring isn't exactly new. Martin gets some extra mileage with it by making all these people detailed, even if as Sandy is going about his research they tend to fall into certain categories. "Person keeping the faith." Check. "Tool of the System." Check. "Embracer of New Age Faith." Check. You get the idea.

As I said, a subtle horror does exist here, in the sense of waking up one morning and realizing that all the wonderful goals you had as a young person ultimately mean nothing in the scheme of things, that you never actually meant them and that you've been gradually caving all these years, making your life hollow and meaningless. All you've done is grow fat and old, and become the very thing you hated. Worse, because you started off with good intentions. This is good stuff, but not enough to hang the novel on alone.

Where the novel succeeds is by hanging the emotional map onto the music of the sixties. And not just in the Baby Boomer, let's all sway to the music that we remember fondly sort of way, but by making this music part of their idealogical texture, it was the lifeblood and the soundtrack of their protests and arguments and triumphs, it seethed with their anger and soared with their victories, wept with their sorrow at the implacability of the system. Each and every person has vinyl engraved onto their souls, as for one of the few times in recent history art and entertainment and protest merged into one, and these people were part of it, in the center of it, scratching out chords and blasting their miseries and hopes through speakers. That is what he captures, and does it well. You may laugh today at seeing some aged hippie types, greying long hair and Woodstock shirts hanging out over guts getting all misty eyed over seeing whatever version of the Grateful Dead still exists, but here you can get a sense of why this actually meant something to them, how music made their concerns written large, and that each performer who died was as acute a loss to them as watching a soldier fall on the battlefield.

What's amazing is how Martin constructed a whole new mythology of music, adding in one of the biggest bands you've never heard of, the Nazgul, and not only making them feel like the best band your parents never cared about, but giving them a history that resonates as closely as the events that actually happened. We meet each member in turn as rumors circulate of them getting back together (difficult, with one member dead) but when that reunion actually happens and we start to follow that tour, we get deep into the heart of rock and roll, realizing that genius isn't easy, but elusive and that nostalgia isn't so much a sword as a pillow that could smother you in its sweetness.

The stuff with the band feels so realistic, their history so messily precise (even the lyrics aren't terrible) that it makes the horror stuff feel that much more grafted on. Those parts of the book feel half-hearted, as Martin only included them because he felt he had to, and the book never seems completely comfortable with getting involved in the supernatural, preferring to focus on Sandy's journey through a path he never paid much attention to the first time around. And when the novel's lens turns to the music, and its effect on the people at the time, it becomes especially incisive, making the Nazgul out to be a real band without slavishly turning them into another cliched "Behind the Music" special. They were the most famous band in the world, and their breakup wasn't their choice. How do you deal with that?

So what could have been thin and shallow winds up being impressively gripping due to Martin's hand with characters (his depiction of Slum, a man who found himself in the sixties and was subsequently broken by them, is amazingly poignant) and the incredible amount of thought that was put into the Nazgul's backstory. It's an uncomfortable nostalgia trip that doesn't look back on a world that was better, just a time when conflicts were more open, and suggests that if one wants to fight the same battles today, no matter how slow or tired or disillusioned one feels, it's still possible. You may just have to dig your fingernails in and tear away at the surface in order to reach the corruption.

If a person can read this book without expecting it to be a Song of Ice and Fire Book, they will enhoy it. For some reason people i talk to that have read this book will say its not what they have come to expect from G. R. R. Martin! Well Duh! it was written 13 years before Game of Thrones and is about A rock band The Nazgul. So no, its not about winning the crown of the 7 kingdoms. It is however a facinating character driven story of a journalist/ex hippie trying to solve a ritualist murder of a music promoter of a band that has not played since their lead singer was assasinated on stage. G.R.R tells the story is an interesting way, as we follow Sandy the journalist around trying to get to the bottom of the mystery while finding out who he himself really is while visting his old hippie friends and seeing how time has altered their lives.

Buy this book, put on some good music and enjoy the ride...

(and for those of you that still want A Game of Thrones...There are some supernatural elements in this book)

Relic113

Certainly not one of George R. R. Martin's better works, 'The Armageddon Rag' still holds it charms for those of us who remember the era it was written in; and written for. 'Rag' was written in the eighties, with a trip down memory lane to the late sixties and early seventies, the birth of heavy rock and the 'freedom era'.

Sandy Blair is a writer, working hard on his latest novel that just seems to go nowhere, when he gets a call from his old magazine The Hedgehog to do a piece on the murder of Jamie Lynch, one time manager to the late, great rock band, the Nazgul. The Nazgul were the biggest band of a lost era, until the lead singer, Patrick Henry Hobbins was shot to death at one of their concerts.

Sandy accepts, and takes off on a road trip that leads him down a darkened memory lane. He finds himself pulled further and further into his past, seeing old friends and remembering old ideals. He's pulled so far in, in fact, that he looses his byline with The Hedgehog, his novel, his agent, his girlfriend, his house, and begins to question his sanity. Strange things are happening to the old band members of Nazgul, tragic things that are slowly leading the band back together.

Enter Eden Morse, who wants The Nazgul to reunite. Eden has found a replacement for Hobbins, going so far as to finance plastic surgery for the young, new singer. Eden wants Sandy to join them, to become part of the movement again, to use his words as he did in the past to promote The Nazgul.

Sandy finds himself in a nightmare when Larry Richmond, the new singer Eden insists on calling 'Pat', begins to change. Are there forces at work under the darkness of The Nazgul's reunion?

The most interesting part of 'The Armageddon Rag' is how Martin weaved together two loves of mine, Tolkien references and hard rock. As usual, his characters are fully fleshed and breathe life under his words. The downside is that the book tended to ramble in places, and the ending felt very flat compared to the suspense being built throughout the rest of the story.

All in all, if you are a fan of Martin, you should read 'The Armageddon Rag'. I found I enjoyed it more the first time I read it back in the eighties, but it still holds enough flavor to taste a second time. Enjoy!

Ok, nowadays, when you hear Martin's name, the instant association is (deservedly) with Game of Thrones. But Martin is far from a one-dimensional writer, as this book proves.

Here we find ourselves immersed in the modern world of the eighties, looking back at the music scene of the sixties and seventies, through the eyes of disillusioned journalist/novelist/former radical Sandy Blair, as he investigates the rather grisly murder of a rock band promoter most closely associated with the hard rock band Nazgul, whose lead singer was assassinated while performing. The trail leads through Sandy's sixties friends and associates and on to the SDS and other super-radical groups.

All very normal, could-have-totally happened - till Martin throws in a quiet, subtle, never totally in sight brush with the supernatural that, by the end of the book, just might make your hairs stand on end and have you totally confused as to who to cheer for.

Martin details the music, the belief in change, the youthful optimism of the counter-culture and their defeats and clashes with authority that is sure to invoke strong feelings of nostalgia for those who lived through and were part of that period. At the same time, he shows just what happened to those who were part of that time, as they aged and were faced with the realities of work and supporting a family. There are quotes from various songs of the period throughout the book, some as chapter headings, others woven into the dialog, that do much bring the period to life (for those that remember those songs). His characterization of Sandy is excellent, and many of the supporting characters come through as very distinct, believable, and in many cases somewhat eccentric people. His ending is excellent and surprising, suspenseful right to the final climax.

There's an awful lot to like here, though perhaps it might not resonate as well with younger readers, though even they should be captivated by the both the finely drawn characters and the suspense. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

An older book by this author, but a good one. You can see the development of his style from The Armageddon Rag to A Game of Thrones. Worth reading if you are a fan and even if you're not but you like eclectic science fiction/fantasy.

I thought this book was a bit boring, and the characters and dialogue not that realistic (gasp). Which is definitely NOT like GRRM. And it seemed to me the way he expressed himself and developed the plot was a bit sloppy and lazy. I felt like he was cutting corners sometimes. You could tell this was one of GRRMs earlier works. He's much better now. A Game of Thrones could be the greatest novel ever written. But consider passing on the Armaggedon Rag. UNLESS you're a huge rock music fan - in which case you will find this to be your favorite novel in life; I'm 100% serious about that.

George Martin has written better books, but, perhaps, none closer to his heart. He lived through and participated in a number of the seminal defining moments of the 60's, and has recorded, as well as anyone can do, the pain and the glory of an era. He has presented, in a modern fantasy fiction format, the hopes and dreams of a generation, exalted; and the bitter disappointment when it all falls apart, and the dreams die. You don't have to have lived through the 60's in your youth to enjoy this book. It will give it a special frisson, but being human is enough.