I received this book as a gift from my Uncle. I am a rather big fan of the other works of George RR Martin, rock music, and thought the Armageddon Rag has an interesting premises.

This book grabbed my attention rather fast with the background of Sandy Blair as he launches into his journalistic investigation of the murder of the Nazgul old promoter Jamie Lynch. The beginning chapters does not only set the stage for the story to unfold it also relies a history lessons or triggers a memories for some of the 60s and the age of all the movements.The later chapter launch more into the realms of horror and fiction setting is more obvious, but the novel is still well written and by that stage I was already sucked into the plot.

For myself I was born in 1991 so this story offered in a way a history lesson, but also the culture and the way people felt and dreams they had to make the world a better place. The novel also opened myself up to the music of the era of the 60s which motivated me to explore this music. I find it more and more that I prefer music before my generation already with rock from the 70s-early 90s and the music I was able to discover from this novel cements that point that I prefer music of older generations as oppose to my own generation.

Another part of the novel that I really enjoyed was the name of the center band of the Nazgul. Being a fan of the Lord of the Rings series I enjoyed the reference to the series. The songs and theme of the Nazgul I liked and while reading I wondered if George RR Martin every wanted to try his hand at being a song writer as well.

An interesting fact I learned from my reading of other stories by GRRM including both Volumes of Dreamsongs, I have a strong feeling that the character of Sandy shares a large majority with GRRM.This book may have more of GRRM than any he has written. Such things as both attending Northwestern and majoring in journalism, both struggled earlier on in their respective careers, and I venture a guess that the feelings of Sandy and his friends were similar to his life back in that era. Other noticeable thing was dates in this novel that reference important things in GRRM life, like his birthday and the year his first novel was published.

For the writing of the novel and the plot I would give this story more of a 4 stars than 5. The reason I am giving it a higher rating is due to the fact that it was not only an exciting story, but also it introduced me to the culture of the 60s and the music of the era than any kind of reading in the history books or other books about that era ever did. So for this reason of grabbing my attention and made me want to learn more about the 60s is my reason for the added star.

I would recommend this book to other fans(even those that read just fantasy or sci-fi) of GRRM and those that enjoyed the 60s. I would also encourage those that enjoy a a good read with interesting characters and a exciting plot. I believe those from the 60s would enjoy the trip down memory lane as well as people that would like to learn more of the 60s from a well written fiction.

If anyone is interested I also created a playlist of the songs that are mentioned/titles of the chapters on youtube. So if you know this songs an nice convenient list to take you back to ones childhood or for those like myself a chance to discover earlier music.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...