What do you think?
Rate this book
The Armageddon Rag
From #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin comes the ultimate novel of revolution, rock ’n’ roll, and apocalyptic murder—a stunning work of fiction that portrays not just the end of an era, but the end of the world as we know it.
Onetime underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the ’60s—until something unexpectedly draws him back: the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with a band called the Nazgûl. Now, as Sandy sets out to investigate the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past—a magical mystery tour of the pent-up passions of his generation. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl and the mad new rhythm may be more than anyone bargained for—a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change in time . . . before everyone follows the beat.
Onetime underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the ’60s—until something unexpectedly draws him back: the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with a band called the Nazgûl. Now, as Sandy sets out to investigate the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past—a magical mystery tour of the pent-up passions of his generation. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl and the mad new rhythm may be more than anyone bargained for—a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change in time . . . before everyone follows the beat.
363 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1983
214 people are currently reading
3893 people want to read
About the author
George R.R. Martin
1,506 books118k followersGeorge Raymond Richard "R.R." Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.
In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.
Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/george...
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.
In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.
Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/george...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 472 reviews
November 4, 2018
George RR Martin was rising up the ranks in sf/f and horror in the early 80s, winning awards left and right. Coming off his critically-acclaimed Sandkings collection and the highly successful historical vampire thriller, Fevre Dream, Martin's publisher rightfully pushed The Armageddon Rag as "the next big thing." Only no one bought it, and as a result the emotionally crushed author basically left the world of fiction-writing to become a Hollywood screenwriter instead.
At the time, this was Martin's most ambitious work yet, and one that was very close to his heart, he being a child of the 60s. Drawing from his own personal experiences of the Summer of Love-era, this supernatural horror/thriller tells the tale of Sandy, a rock journalist in the early 80s who's investigating the mysterious, gruesome murder of a promoter who managed several big-name bands throughout the 60s and 70s, including hard-rockers The Nazgûl, one of the most famous of the era. And they broke up exactly 10 years before to the day, when their frontman was murdered. Fearing a connection, Sandy decides to visit some old friends from back in the day, including the remaining Nazgûl members, to see if he can get to the bottom of it all.
Much of the novel is just an excuse for Martin to reminisce about the good ole' flower-power days, as that's what main character Sandy does throughout the first half, while reconnecting with his old buddies. It's very well-written, but it takes a while to get to the more interesting, fantastical elements of the story, and I had a hard time keeping my focus during the first half. But it does shift to supernatural horror in a clever way that I won't describe, for fear of ruining it for others.
Overall, it's not something I'd go out of my way to hunt down, but if you come across it for a decent price, it may be worth a look-see. But if you're really interested in reading some of Martin's early horror work, start with his excellent collections like Sandkings or Nightflyers first*.
3.0 Stars
*The title stories of each collection are two of the most chilling sf/horror hybrids I've read. "Sandkings" is around novelette-length (47 pages in my edition), while "Nightflyers" could almost be considered a short novel (over 100 pages). Both can be more easily found in Martin's Dreamsongs retrospective.
At the time, this was Martin's most ambitious work yet, and one that was very close to his heart, he being a child of the 60s. Drawing from his own personal experiences of the Summer of Love-era, this supernatural horror/thriller tells the tale of Sandy, a rock journalist in the early 80s who's investigating the mysterious, gruesome murder of a promoter who managed several big-name bands throughout the 60s and 70s, including hard-rockers The Nazgûl, one of the most famous of the era. And they broke up exactly 10 years before to the day, when their frontman was murdered. Fearing a connection, Sandy decides to visit some old friends from back in the day, including the remaining Nazgûl members, to see if he can get to the bottom of it all.
Much of the novel is just an excuse for Martin to reminisce about the good ole' flower-power days, as that's what main character Sandy does throughout the first half, while reconnecting with his old buddies. It's very well-written, but it takes a while to get to the more interesting, fantastical elements of the story, and I had a hard time keeping my focus during the first half. But it does shift to supernatural horror in a clever way that I won't describe, for fear of ruining it for others.
Overall, it's not something I'd go out of my way to hunt down, but if you come across it for a decent price, it may be worth a look-see. But if you're really interested in reading some of Martin's early horror work, start with his excellent collections like Sandkings or Nightflyers first*.
3.0 Stars
*The title stories of each collection are two of the most chilling sf/horror hybrids I've read. "Sandkings" is around novelette-length (47 pages in my edition), while "Nightflyers" could almost be considered a short novel (over 100 pages). Both can be more easily found in Martin's Dreamsongs retrospective.
October 23, 2012
This is very important book for my relationship with mr. Martin. :-))
When "Song of Ice and Fire" started to get published in my country (Croatia) I was in a phase when I wanted to boycott all US products, because of US attack on whatever country US was attacking at that time.
At that point, major question for me was: shall I buy this "Game of Thrones" book by this US writer, or shall I boycott it as any other US product?
Fortunately, I have previously read "Armageddon Rag" and I've decided that the man who wrote this book couldn't be blamed for US politics.
And this is how my boycott failed.
I'm a bit more selective now :-))
When "Song of Ice and Fire" started to get published in my country (Croatia) I was in a phase when I wanted to boycott all US products, because of US attack on whatever country US was attacking at that time.
At that point, major question for me was: shall I buy this "Game of Thrones" book by this US writer, or shall I boycott it as any other US product?
Fortunately, I have previously read "Armageddon Rag" and I've decided that the man who wrote this book couldn't be blamed for US politics.
And this is how my boycott failed.
I'm a bit more selective now :-))
September 30, 2023
The era of counterculture of the 1960s is long gone. The time of the hippie movement and advocating for its ideals, the struggle for democracy, freedom of speech, the fight against corporatism and consumerism, the struggle for human rights, and the fight against needless wars has passed. It was replaced by the 80s, and we all know how that turned out. No more rock 'n' roll music in its pure, uncorrupted form. It has been replaced by glam rock, crazy hairstyles, and synth-pop.
Sandy Blair, once an avid radical hippie and journalist for the famous Hedgehog, a magazine dedicated to the time of the '60s and those failed ideals, is now a frustrated writer who is stuck on page 37 of his latest novel with the deadline for handing over manuscript around the corner. He now lives a serious life. He has a Mazda RX-7, a beautiful and successful wife, and money, but he still lacks something. When he gets a call from Jarred Patterson, one of the people from his past, telling him he has an offer, Sandy wholeheartedly accepts it despite the opposition of his girlfriend and his agent. The thing is that Jamie Lynch was murdered, brutally. Someone took out his heart and left his body on his desk, lying on a poster of a Nazgûl West Mesa concert. The Nazgûl album, Music to Wake the Dead, was playing in the background.
All these things, Jamie Lynch, the West Mesa concert, and Nazgûl, are things from Sandy's past and as Sandy unravels the case more, he becomes more entangled in the past. Jamie Lynch was the manager of Nazgûl, a legendary rock band from the 1960s, one of the pioneers of the hard rock, whose career ended abruptly in 1971. at a concert in West Mesa, when a sniper shot in the head their singer, Patrick Henry Hobbins, better known as the Hobbit. After that concert, the Nazgûl never played again because of Lynch's games, but now that he's gone and not standing in their way, will they play again? Will they take the stage again and play their Armageddon song and thus herald the arrival of a new age and something ominous with it? Who will take Hobbit’s place? It's up to Sandy to reveal, but the price could be too great.
The Armageddon Rag could be called a novel about music, a crime novel, a fantasy and horror novel, a psychological novel, a road novel, an autobiographical novel, a historical novel, a melancholy recollection of forgotten ideals and forgotten times, a novel about criticism of the 80s. Whichever you pick you won't go wrong because it is all that. Although Martin experimented a bit here, stepping out of his comfort zone, this is a brilliantly written novel, where Sandy's character was masterfully done, although Martin always knew how to write interesting characters.
Perhaps Sandy is persuasive because Martin himself can be easily found in it, which becomes clear after a few pages. Also, the Nazgûl and the West Mesa concert seem so real that you'll reach the internet in search of details.
So why did Martin fail so much after this novel that he gave up writing all the way to A Song of Ice and Fire? There are two reasons. The novel is difficult to classify into a particular genre, at least three genres are intertwined in it. The second reason is the motif of the novel, forgotten ideals that in the 80s, in an era when looking at some other things, simply did not sit well with people. Those who pursued and stood up for these ideals in the 1960s were "adults" and engaged in "serious" things, and the younger generations did not care about it. Does that make The Armageddon Rag a bad novel? Not a bit. The Armageddon Rag is an excellent novel, just hard to described. A dose of psychological plunge into the madness of Lovecraft's characters, a bit of '60s rock 'n' roll, sprinkled with a bit of Tolkien and a touch of crime novel in crazy mushroom sauce and heavy LSD.
Sandy Blair, once an avid radical hippie and journalist for the famous Hedgehog, a magazine dedicated to the time of the '60s and those failed ideals, is now a frustrated writer who is stuck on page 37 of his latest novel with the deadline for handing over manuscript around the corner. He now lives a serious life. He has a Mazda RX-7, a beautiful and successful wife, and money, but he still lacks something. When he gets a call from Jarred Patterson, one of the people from his past, telling him he has an offer, Sandy wholeheartedly accepts it despite the opposition of his girlfriend and his agent. The thing is that Jamie Lynch was murdered, brutally. Someone took out his heart and left his body on his desk, lying on a poster of a Nazgûl West Mesa concert. The Nazgûl album, Music to Wake the Dead, was playing in the background.
All these things, Jamie Lynch, the West Mesa concert, and Nazgûl, are things from Sandy's past and as Sandy unravels the case more, he becomes more entangled in the past. Jamie Lynch was the manager of Nazgûl, a legendary rock band from the 1960s, one of the pioneers of the hard rock, whose career ended abruptly in 1971. at a concert in West Mesa, when a sniper shot in the head their singer, Patrick Henry Hobbins, better known as the Hobbit. After that concert, the Nazgûl never played again because of Lynch's games, but now that he's gone and not standing in their way, will they play again? Will they take the stage again and play their Armageddon song and thus herald the arrival of a new age and something ominous with it? Who will take Hobbit’s place? It's up to Sandy to reveal, but the price could be too great.
The Armageddon Rag could be called a novel about music, a crime novel, a fantasy and horror novel, a psychological novel, a road novel, an autobiographical novel, a historical novel, a melancholy recollection of forgotten ideals and forgotten times, a novel about criticism of the 80s. Whichever you pick you won't go wrong because it is all that. Although Martin experimented a bit here, stepping out of his comfort zone, this is a brilliantly written novel, where Sandy's character was masterfully done, although Martin always knew how to write interesting characters.
Perhaps Sandy is persuasive because Martin himself can be easily found in it, which becomes clear after a few pages. Also, the Nazgûl and the West Mesa concert seem so real that you'll reach the internet in search of details.
So why did Martin fail so much after this novel that he gave up writing all the way to A Song of Ice and Fire? There are two reasons. The novel is difficult to classify into a particular genre, at least three genres are intertwined in it. The second reason is the motif of the novel, forgotten ideals that in the 80s, in an era when looking at some other things, simply did not sit well with people. Those who pursued and stood up for these ideals in the 1960s were "adults" and engaged in "serious" things, and the younger generations did not care about it. Does that make The Armageddon Rag a bad novel? Not a bit. The Armageddon Rag is an excellent novel, just hard to described. A dose of psychological plunge into the madness of Lovecraft's characters, a bit of '60s rock 'n' roll, sprinkled with a bit of Tolkien and a touch of crime novel in crazy mushroom sauce and heavy LSD.
August 3, 2021
George R.R Martin knows how to write lyrics. If you read the ASOIAF novels, you'll know some memorable songs like the ominous 'The Rains of Castamere', the tragic 'The Last of the Giants', or the bawdy 'The Bear and the Maiden Fair'. In The Armageddon Rag, where the story revolves around this Led Zeppelin-like band, you'll find many songs too. The way George writes about the performance of each song will make you feel you're seeing them live. In fact, as my BR friend Siobhan said in her excellent review it makes the readers want to buy their album.
Yes, we want The Nazgul (yes, inspired by that one) to be a real band because we have become so emotionally invested in their journey from the revolutionary 60s to the 80s. It shows how good and immersive George's writing is.
The real rating is 4.5 stars. I have to round it down because I'd like to have more explanation on the fantastical side of it. But, still, this a book that will stay with both of us for a long time. If you're a fan of ASOIAF and want to get a feel of his other works, do try this one, I guarantee you can get satisfaction. *wink*
Yes, we want The Nazgul (yes, inspired by that one) to be a real band because we have become so emotionally invested in their journey from the revolutionary 60s to the 80s. It shows how good and immersive George's writing is.
The real rating is 4.5 stars. I have to round it down because I'd like to have more explanation on the fantastical side of it. But, still, this a book that will stay with both of us for a long time. If you're a fan of ASOIAF and want to get a feel of his other works, do try this one, I guarantee you can get satisfaction. *wink*
October 6, 2016
I read this book at the urging of a number of people, since I write a lot of music-infused SFF and this was a rock n roll fantasy novel. It gets a solid three stars. Very readable, cinematic even. Martin does write music well, and this hits some fine creepy notes. It's an interesting look at the 60s and 70s from the not very far out early 80s. That said, I found the portrayals of women frustrating.
December 29, 2012
Okokokok, I love me some George RR Martin, but this book is severely lacking. It is by far the worst I've read from him and in it he accomplishes something I never thought could be possible... he writes some very one dimensional characters!
The story is a gigantic leap from the song of ice and fire world and isn't as cleverly crafted as the fevre dream world. The characters in this book are unlikable and stale. The main protagonist is a close minded, hippie, doucebag journalist who is obsessed with his past glory days. I was debating whether I should quit the book about 100 pages in, but I stuck it out because I really wanted to see if he would write a happy or a sad ending, to give me an idea of what's to come in ASOIAF. The story is unbelievable and tacky and the rock and rollers are over the top stereotypes. It's as if Martin had never talked to a musician in his life or something.
It had some interesting ideas and cool parts, but overall, it was a gigantic letdown that I wouldn't recommend to even some of the most hardcore Martin fans.
3/10
The story is a gigantic leap from the song of ice and fire world and isn't as cleverly crafted as the fevre dream world. The characters in this book are unlikable and stale. The main protagonist is a close minded, hippie, doucebag journalist who is obsessed with his past glory days. I was debating whether I should quit the book about 100 pages in, but I stuck it out because I really wanted to see if he would write a happy or a sad ending, to give me an idea of what's to come in ASOIAF. The story is unbelievable and tacky and the rock and rollers are over the top stereotypes. It's as if Martin had never talked to a musician in his life or something.
It had some interesting ideas and cool parts, but overall, it was a gigantic letdown that I wouldn't recommend to even some of the most hardcore Martin fans.
3/10
April 4, 2013
Did you know George R.R. Martin wrote novels before A Game of Thrones? Yes, it’s true! And you can read them! On paper, even! The Armageddon Rag is a 1980s tale of a journalist-turned-novelist recapturing the zeitgeist of the 1970s music scene. Spurred by a mysterious, sacrificial killing of a music promoter, Sandy Blair discovers that there might be more to it. Someone has a plan to reunite the band Nazgûl—particularly troubling since its lead singer is dead.
Sandy leaves the adult world of responsibility behind and goes off on a cross-country road trip to track down the surviving members of the Nazgûl. Along the way, he visits several friends with whom he has lost touch—members of the revolutionary circles in which he moved when he was younger. The trappings of Sandy’s present fall by the wayside in favour of continuing to recapture his present. As he continues to investigate the killing of Jamie Lynch, Sandy discovers that there is a supernatural element to his news story. And it might just eat his soul.
The Armageddon Rag is a very different beast from A Song of Ice and Fire, but they do share one thing: both are ambivalently supernatural at first. It’s not clear, at the beginning of this book, whether there is a supernatural element to the crime or merely the appearance of one. GRRM teases us, dangling the possibility of magic but never quite confirming it. He fakes us out a few times—the seemingly-impossible re-emergence of Patrick Hobson is one example. It’s not until the second half of the book, as Sandy’s sanity, steeped in the atmosphere of the renewed Nazgûl, begins to unravel.
So for the majority of the book, this is a music murder mystery. Sandy is an unlikely detective (GRRM hangs a lampshade on this through Sandy’s own reflections). However, it’s fair to say that the story isn’t about the mystery as much as it is about the music, and the relationship between music, culture, and the revolution that Sandy held so dear in his younger days. To this end, Sandy’s various reunions with his old pals provide great insight into how he has changed in response to the decline of that revolutionary attitude. Each of his friends has reacted to that decline in different ways. Maggie has clung to her old lifestyle, attempting to remain carefree. Lark—restyled as L. Steven Elleyn—has embraced the suit-and-tie atmosphere of middle management. Bambi has stuck her head in the sand and joined a commune. And Sandy, of course, quickly discovers that he isn’t quite so adult and settled as his life as a writer and boyfriend might make him appear.
I’m actually rather surprised by how much I enjoyed The Armageddon Rag. So much of it takes place—or is influenced by the atmosphere of—those “lost decades” of history for me, the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Too recent to have received much coverage in history classes; too distant to have the same connection to me as the 1990s and 2000s, those decades seem forever just out of reach. I can’t identify with Sandy the way an older reader might. So it’s a testament to GRRM’s skill that I still understood and sympathized with this journey of rediscovery, which ultimately culminates in Sandy abandoning his journalistic endeavour to do public relations for the Nazgûl.
The tone of the book begins to shift, with supernatural elements coming to the fore. Sandy begins to realize that the reunion of the Nazgûl, the “resurrection” of Patrick Hobson, their new concert at West Mesa, are all part of a larger plan. Trust someone like GRRM to come up with the idea that Judgement Day will take the form of a concert! Despite the apocalyptic angle, however, the climax of the book isn’t so much about the battle between good and evil as the battle between Sandy’s sense of self-determination and his commitment to the “cause”. His entire journey is an examination of whether he abandoned the “revolution” because he wasn’t committed enough. His crucial decision at the climax of the concert is the last word.
The Armageddon Rag has moments of brilliance. Its supernatural elements aren’t quite married with my own tastes in this genre, and for that reason I can’t give it five stars. But the mystery, story, and especially the characterization are all what one would expect from GRRM. It’s not enough to tide me over until the next Song of Ice and Fire book … but it helps.
Sandy leaves the adult world of responsibility behind and goes off on a cross-country road trip to track down the surviving members of the Nazgûl. Along the way, he visits several friends with whom he has lost touch—members of the revolutionary circles in which he moved when he was younger. The trappings of Sandy’s present fall by the wayside in favour of continuing to recapture his present. As he continues to investigate the killing of Jamie Lynch, Sandy discovers that there is a supernatural element to his news story. And it might just eat his soul.
The Armageddon Rag is a very different beast from A Song of Ice and Fire, but they do share one thing: both are ambivalently supernatural at first. It’s not clear, at the beginning of this book, whether there is a supernatural element to the crime or merely the appearance of one. GRRM teases us, dangling the possibility of magic but never quite confirming it. He fakes us out a few times—the seemingly-impossible re-emergence of Patrick Hobson is one example. It’s not until the second half of the book, as Sandy’s sanity, steeped in the atmosphere of the renewed Nazgûl, begins to unravel.
So for the majority of the book, this is a music murder mystery. Sandy is an unlikely detective (GRRM hangs a lampshade on this through Sandy’s own reflections). However, it’s fair to say that the story isn’t about the mystery as much as it is about the music, and the relationship between music, culture, and the revolution that Sandy held so dear in his younger days. To this end, Sandy’s various reunions with his old pals provide great insight into how he has changed in response to the decline of that revolutionary attitude. Each of his friends has reacted to that decline in different ways. Maggie has clung to her old lifestyle, attempting to remain carefree. Lark—restyled as L. Steven Elleyn—has embraced the suit-and-tie atmosphere of middle management. Bambi has stuck her head in the sand and joined a commune. And Sandy, of course, quickly discovers that he isn’t quite so adult and settled as his life as a writer and boyfriend might make him appear.
I’m actually rather surprised by how much I enjoyed The Armageddon Rag. So much of it takes place—or is influenced by the atmosphere of—those “lost decades” of history for me, the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Too recent to have received much coverage in history classes; too distant to have the same connection to me as the 1990s and 2000s, those decades seem forever just out of reach. I can’t identify with Sandy the way an older reader might. So it’s a testament to GRRM’s skill that I still understood and sympathized with this journey of rediscovery, which ultimately culminates in Sandy abandoning his journalistic endeavour to do public relations for the Nazgûl.
The tone of the book begins to shift, with supernatural elements coming to the fore. Sandy begins to realize that the reunion of the Nazgûl, the “resurrection” of Patrick Hobson, their new concert at West Mesa, are all part of a larger plan. Trust someone like GRRM to come up with the idea that Judgement Day will take the form of a concert! Despite the apocalyptic angle, however, the climax of the book isn’t so much about the battle between good and evil as the battle between Sandy’s sense of self-determination and his commitment to the “cause”. His entire journey is an examination of whether he abandoned the “revolution” because he wasn’t committed enough. His crucial decision at the climax of the concert is the last word.
The Armageddon Rag has moments of brilliance. Its supernatural elements aren’t quite married with my own tastes in this genre, and for that reason I can’t give it five stars. But the mystery, story, and especially the characterization are all what one would expect from GRRM. It’s not enough to tide me over until the next Song of Ice and Fire book … but it helps.
Read
February 4, 2014Youth, anger, and rock and roll—three things with the power of magic, especially for those of us who were young in the sixties. In this combination murder mystery and road trip novel, Martin evokes that vividly, and then ponders where it all went.
The opening swiftly sets the scene: as the hippie generation swelled into student protest in the late sixties, the rock band called Nazgûl became the voice of a generation. Their rise to fame peaked on September 20th, 1971, at an enormous outdoor concert in West Mesa, New Mexico, then abruptly fell with the shooting death of the lead singer, Patrick Henry Hobbins, or ‘Hobbit,” right on stage.
The murder remained unsolved and the band went their separate ways. Their followers also dispersed, including Sandy Blair, a young student-journalist who’d helped found a rock magazine called Hedgehog. He wrote for the Hog until he was fired. The Hog was going mainstream, where the money was, leaving Sandy in the wreckage of the Age of Aquarius.
Now Blair is a novelist whose three publications have been progressively less successful. Stuck on page 37, he’s living with a real estate agent whose grownup attitude has pulled him into a practical, contract-defined, gender-equal condo that is a creative black hole.
He gets a call from his ex-friend and editor at the Hog to investigate the murder of the rock agent who had once managed the Nazgûl. Blair is curious as well as at loose ends; he drives to Maine to discover that the murder was carried out in an extremely grisly ritual, with visual evidence linking to one of the Nazgûls’ songs.
His literary agent and his girlfriend both want him to man up, drop the investigation and get back to practical matters. His response? What is the only possible response when everyone around you earnestly advises you to grow up and face reality? Road trip!
As Blair travels cross country to interview former Nazgûl and his once-activist friends, he is also traveling into his past. But the present doesn’t stand still: violence follows him, making it clear that the murder of the rock agent is no isolated incident, but part of a pattern.
The trip into memory, fuel-injected by rock lyrics of the sixties, shifts into psychedelic fantasy, as a new impresario who fought for the sixties revolution brings the band together, the goal a repeat performance at West Mesa. Sandy, the emotional, political, and spiritual agnostic, hired as reluctant publicity flack, becomes the key player in an apocalypse that he doesn’t believe he’s seeing until he’s got the past, present, and future in the cross-hairs.
As I was rereading the book in the handsome new Gollancz edition, the cover caught the eye of my son. The art depicts the Eye of Sauron set in the scope of a sniper rifle, and Martin’s name is even larger than the title. My son is the drummer in a rock band; as a boy, he sat beside me each December when the latest Tolkien Ring film came out; and while I don’t know if he’s watching the Game of Thrones fantasy series on TV, he certainly recognized Martin’s name.
I thought he’d be the perfect reader for this book, and began describing it. As I did, I watched his reaction, aware of the paradigmatic divide between my generation and his. When I read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as a teen in the mid-sixties, it belonged to people my age, the counter-culture. I found it incredibly exciting, almost a secret code, when Lord of the Rings references began showing up in rock songs and on posters.
For my son, Lord of the Rings was Stuff Mom and Dad read, made into films that everybody went to see. Counter-culture for him in his mid-teens was punk rock and art, maybe Sandman comics. The sixties to him meant boring lectures and old vids about flag burning and the Viet Nam War, Nixon and Watergate . . . test questions on history exams, not the blood, sweat and tears of people once his own age who thought to reshape the world, inspired—sometimes driven—by music.
Armageddon Rag was first published in 1983, three years after Reagan’s election. Sandy Blair symbolizes so many of the thirty-something ex-revolutionary baby boomers, so many of whom were bitter, bewildered, wondering what had happened to the revolution, and how could we end up with a President who made Tricky Dick look liberal?
Reading that book in the eighties, I found Sandy’s existential angst, the sky-challenging What happened to us? resonated so deeply that I could scarcely bear to reread the novel. Images from it chased me for quite a while after, and friends and I who talked about the novel often ruminated about which band’s songs were closest to the “Rag.”
In the mid-eighties, as I recall, the most agreed-on songs were “Inna-gadda-da-vida” and the long version of “Stairway to Heaven,” but on this reread what came to mind was a vid I saw a year or two ago of a performance by Schandmaul—whose rock demonstrates a strong Tolkienian influence—when thousands of their fans took over chanting one of the lines and wouldn’t let it go. The exhilaration teetering on the edge of mass action seemed to disconcert the band, to put it mildly.
It’s that eerie reality-distorting vibe that turns crowds into mobs with a single mind and a single goal that Martin evokes so effectively. I used the term psychedelic fantasy up above because Blair is never really certain that the supernatural has irrupted into the natural world as he defines it, or if he’s hallucinating.
On this reread, I found the earnest world-weariness of a bunch of thirty-somethings was amusing to me in my sixties, further, that some of Sandy’s anxious ranting about what went wrong tended toward length and repetition. Whenever Sandy starts shaking, you know several pages of tirade are coming up, some more effective than others: on page 60, when he cries, “I don’t like it, I don’t like it!” and two lines later he blames the wine, I was thinking, unfortunate choice of words. I didn’t need the echo of “whine.”
Another aspect that had decidedly dated was the cheerfully unconscious (white) male het view of women: while the men get generally described, the women all receive visual reports on the size and shape of their breasts. Though Martin plays fair for the modern reader, in that Sandy does not get a free pass for his sexually-oriented evaluations of character.
The action rises to a dramatic climax, but on this reread, the scene I found the most effective was Sandy’s plunge among the ghosts of the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Occult-caused time travel?—actual ghosts?—the characters’ differing perceptions of reality overlap at times like interlocking war zones. Whose version of reality is ‘right’ is immaterial, even uninteresting, juxtaposed against the resonance of truth.
And it’s exactly this aspect (as well as the book being overall a ripping good yarn) that I’d love to talk over with my son. It is inevitable that we are going to look at human behavior, history, and music from either end of the decades in question, but one thing for certain: any book that can foster such discussion and still entertain, no matter what the age of the reader, is a keeper.
The opening swiftly sets the scene: as the hippie generation swelled into student protest in the late sixties, the rock band called Nazgûl became the voice of a generation. Their rise to fame peaked on September 20th, 1971, at an enormous outdoor concert in West Mesa, New Mexico, then abruptly fell with the shooting death of the lead singer, Patrick Henry Hobbins, or ‘Hobbit,” right on stage.
The murder remained unsolved and the band went their separate ways. Their followers also dispersed, including Sandy Blair, a young student-journalist who’d helped found a rock magazine called Hedgehog. He wrote for the Hog until he was fired. The Hog was going mainstream, where the money was, leaving Sandy in the wreckage of the Age of Aquarius.
Now Blair is a novelist whose three publications have been progressively less successful. Stuck on page 37, he’s living with a real estate agent whose grownup attitude has pulled him into a practical, contract-defined, gender-equal condo that is a creative black hole.
He gets a call from his ex-friend and editor at the Hog to investigate the murder of the rock agent who had once managed the Nazgûl. Blair is curious as well as at loose ends; he drives to Maine to discover that the murder was carried out in an extremely grisly ritual, with visual evidence linking to one of the Nazgûls’ songs.
His literary agent and his girlfriend both want him to man up, drop the investigation and get back to practical matters. His response? What is the only possible response when everyone around you earnestly advises you to grow up and face reality? Road trip!
As Blair travels cross country to interview former Nazgûl and his once-activist friends, he is also traveling into his past. But the present doesn’t stand still: violence follows him, making it clear that the murder of the rock agent is no isolated incident, but part of a pattern.
The trip into memory, fuel-injected by rock lyrics of the sixties, shifts into psychedelic fantasy, as a new impresario who fought for the sixties revolution brings the band together, the goal a repeat performance at West Mesa. Sandy, the emotional, political, and spiritual agnostic, hired as reluctant publicity flack, becomes the key player in an apocalypse that he doesn’t believe he’s seeing until he’s got the past, present, and future in the cross-hairs.
As I was rereading the book in the handsome new Gollancz edition, the cover caught the eye of my son. The art depicts the Eye of Sauron set in the scope of a sniper rifle, and Martin’s name is even larger than the title. My son is the drummer in a rock band; as a boy, he sat beside me each December when the latest Tolkien Ring film came out; and while I don’t know if he’s watching the Game of Thrones fantasy series on TV, he certainly recognized Martin’s name.
I thought he’d be the perfect reader for this book, and began describing it. As I did, I watched his reaction, aware of the paradigmatic divide between my generation and his. When I read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as a teen in the mid-sixties, it belonged to people my age, the counter-culture. I found it incredibly exciting, almost a secret code, when Lord of the Rings references began showing up in rock songs and on posters.
For my son, Lord of the Rings was Stuff Mom and Dad read, made into films that everybody went to see. Counter-culture for him in his mid-teens was punk rock and art, maybe Sandman comics. The sixties to him meant boring lectures and old vids about flag burning and the Viet Nam War, Nixon and Watergate . . . test questions on history exams, not the blood, sweat and tears of people once his own age who thought to reshape the world, inspired—sometimes driven—by music.
Armageddon Rag was first published in 1983, three years after Reagan’s election. Sandy Blair symbolizes so many of the thirty-something ex-revolutionary baby boomers, so many of whom were bitter, bewildered, wondering what had happened to the revolution, and how could we end up with a President who made Tricky Dick look liberal?
Reading that book in the eighties, I found Sandy’s existential angst, the sky-challenging What happened to us? resonated so deeply that I could scarcely bear to reread the novel. Images from it chased me for quite a while after, and friends and I who talked about the novel often ruminated about which band’s songs were closest to the “Rag.”
In the mid-eighties, as I recall, the most agreed-on songs were “Inna-gadda-da-vida” and the long version of “Stairway to Heaven,” but on this reread what came to mind was a vid I saw a year or two ago of a performance by Schandmaul—whose rock demonstrates a strong Tolkienian influence—when thousands of their fans took over chanting one of the lines and wouldn’t let it go. The exhilaration teetering on the edge of mass action seemed to disconcert the band, to put it mildly.
It’s that eerie reality-distorting vibe that turns crowds into mobs with a single mind and a single goal that Martin evokes so effectively. I used the term psychedelic fantasy up above because Blair is never really certain that the supernatural has irrupted into the natural world as he defines it, or if he’s hallucinating.
On this reread, I found the earnest world-weariness of a bunch of thirty-somethings was amusing to me in my sixties, further, that some of Sandy’s anxious ranting about what went wrong tended toward length and repetition. Whenever Sandy starts shaking, you know several pages of tirade are coming up, some more effective than others: on page 60, when he cries, “I don’t like it, I don’t like it!” and two lines later he blames the wine, I was thinking, unfortunate choice of words. I didn’t need the echo of “whine.”
Another aspect that had decidedly dated was the cheerfully unconscious (white) male het view of women: while the men get generally described, the women all receive visual reports on the size and shape of their breasts. Though Martin plays fair for the modern reader, in that Sandy does not get a free pass for his sexually-oriented evaluations of character.
The action rises to a dramatic climax, but on this reread, the scene I found the most effective was Sandy’s plunge among the ghosts of the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Occult-caused time travel?—actual ghosts?—the characters’ differing perceptions of reality overlap at times like interlocking war zones. Whose version of reality is ‘right’ is immaterial, even uninteresting, juxtaposed against the resonance of truth.
And it’s exactly this aspect (as well as the book being overall a ripping good yarn) that I’d love to talk over with my son. It is inevitable that we are going to look at human behavior, history, and music from either end of the decades in question, but one thing for certain: any book that can foster such discussion and still entertain, no matter what the age of the reader, is a keeper.
December 26, 2020
Jugendbewegungen sind ein relativ neues Phänomen. Ein Phänomen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Einige wollen natürlich schon in Goethes WERTHER (erschienen 1774) einen frühen Vorläufer erkennen, andere erklären zumindest Wedekinds FRÜHLINGS ERWACHEN (erschienen 1891) zum kulturellen Ursprung adoleszenter Aufmüpfigkeit. Soziologen und Historiker verweisen gern auf die Jugendbewegten der 1910er und 1920er Jahre. Doch ist man ehrlich, muß man gestehen, daß das, was heute unter „Jugendbewegung“ oder „Jugendkultur“ oder „Subkultur“ subsumiert wird, im Grunde erst nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg mit Elvis Presley und dem Rock´n´Roll als Massenphänomen aufkam, seine Blütezeit dann in den späten 50ern, mit den Beatniks und dem Be-Bop-Jazz und dann dem Aufkommen der Beatles und des sogenannten Rock in den 60er Jahren erlebte. In den späten 60ern explodierte die Jugendbewegung schlichtweg, da sie in der Rockmusik ein einheitliches Sprachrohr gefunden hatte und zugleich ernsthafte Bestrebungen unternahm, die Gesellschaft zu ändern. Die Bürgerrechtsbewegung in den USA, der Protest gegen den Vietnamkrieg, der weltweit zunahm, die Studentenbewegung von 1968ff – wahrscheinlich verdichtete sich das, was man eine Jugendbewegung nennen kann, nie davor und danach nie wieder derart, wie in jenen Jahren. Danach kam Punk und dann zersplitterte die Jugendbewegung in etliche Subkulturen, es kamen andere Musikstile auf und Verschiedenes existierte mal friedlich, mal weniger friedlich, nebeneinander her.
Daß die Generation, die um 1968 etwa ihr zwanzigstes Lebensjahr erreicht hatte, damit also voll im Saft stand, ein Bewußtsein für die Gesellschaft und deren Verwerfungen etabliert hatte, in der Musik zwischen den Rolling Stones, den Doors, Velvet Underground und den Westcoast-Psychedelia-Bands wie Jefferson Airplane oder den Grateful Dead ihre Heroen und mit der Musik ein Ausdrucksmittel gefunden hatte, eine Generation, die sich ernsthaft aufmachte, etwas zu verändern, sich auf esoterische Weisheiten und sozialistische Manifeste stützte, um ein System zu stürzen, das sie als korrupt und nicht reformierbar erlebte, und ein neues, auf Liebe und Solidarität grundierendes System errichten wollte, daß diese Generation, die heute so hingebungsvoll gehasst wird, sich irgendwann an den Gestaden der zerborstenen Träume wiederfand und fragen musste, was eigentlich geblieben war von all den Hoffnungen, Idealen und Plänen, die nach und nach im Nebel immer neuer Drogen verblasst waren, liegt förmlich auf der Hand. Nie schien die Möglichkeit wirklicher Revolution und echter Veränderung näher, nie schien der Traum leichter zu verwirklichen, da es damals eine wirkliche, fast einheitliche Jugendbewegung gab und nicht zig verschiedene, mit sehr verschiedenen Lebenseinstellungen, Ansichten und Werten.
Genau an diesem Punkt des Zweifels und der Rückschau befindet sich der Musikjournalist und Schriftsteller Sandy Blair zu Beginn von George R.R. Martins Roman ARMAGEDDON ROCK (erschienen 1983). Er ist einer jener, die es geschafft haben aus den revolutionären Tagen der späten 60er und frühen 70er in ein Leben abseits des Mainstreams zu gleiten. Er, ein steter Begleiter des Rockbusiness, seiner Protagonisten, der Bands und Promoter und Mitbegründer einer im Roman wesentlichen Fachzeitschrift namens Hedgehog, lebt mittlerweile ein solides Leben irgendwo in New York City, hat seine diversen Schrottkarren gegen einen modernen Wagen eingetauscht und führt eine Beziehung zu einer Immobilienmaklerin, die zwar nicht gerade von tiefer Liebe, aber einer gewissen Geborgenheit zeugt.
Bis eines Tages die Kunde von einer Wiedervereinigung der sagenhaften Rockband Nazgûl die Runde macht. Noch erschütternder ist jedoch, daß deren früherer Promoter in seinem Haus tot aufgefunden wurde – er wurde geradezu hingerichtet, man hat ihm das Herz herausgerissen und die Leiche lag auf einem Plakat des letzten Konzerts der Nazgûl, einem legendären Auftritt in der West Mesa im Jahr 1971, der damit endete, daß der Leadsänger auf offener Bühne von einem unbekannten Scharfschützen niedergestreckt wurde. Blair, dessen neuer Roman nicht richtig vorankommen will und dessen Beziehung immer mehr Risse aufweist, lässt sich von seinem ehemaligen Freund und jetzigen Herausgeber des Hedgehog beauftragen, der Sache nachzugehen. Und so macht sich Sandy auf einen Trip in die Vergangenheit, ins Herz der Finsternis jener Generation, die oben beschrieben wurde, und nähert sich damit auch immer mehr dem Geheimnis um die Nazgûl und eine vermeintliche Re-Union der Band.
Nicht von ungefähr hat der Autor die Band nach jenen Wesen benannt, die in J. R.R. Tolkiens DER HERR DER RINGE (erschienen 1954/55) Wanderer zwischen den Welten von Gut und Böse sind, einst Menschen, nun Ringgeister, die dem einen Ring verfallen sind und von Sauron dem Mächtigen, dem Herrn der Finsternis, ausgeschickt werden, ihn zu suchen. Tolkien war neben Lewis Carroll, der die Abenteuer von ALICE IM WUNDERLAND (erschienen 1865) erfand, und J.M. Barrie, dem Autor von PETER PAN (als Bühnenstück 1904 erschienen), dem Jungen, der nie erwachsen wird, einer der Helden der Hippies der 60er Jahre. So verweist Martin auf die popkulturellen Items jener Jahre, greift aber auch das Grundgerüst oder Grundmotiv von Tolkien auf und lässt seinen Sandy Blair in einen epochalen Kampf zwischen Gut und Böse stolpern, der allerdings weitaus psychologischer behandelt wird, als Tolkien es je war.
Da man George R.R. Martin heutzutage vor allem als Autor der Vorlage zur immens erfolgreichen TV-Serie GAME OF THRONES kennt, wird sich der Heyne-Verlag, der den Roman 2016 neu auflegte, gedacht haben, es sei am besten, ihn als Fantasy-Spektakel zu bewerben. Davon sollten sich Anhänger des Mittelalter-Epos auf keinen Fall blenden lassen, denn wenn überhaupt, sind die Anteile an Fantasy im Roman eher marginal. Sandy Blair fährt auf den ersten 350 Seiten durch das Amerika der späten 70er Jahre und besucht ehemalige Freunde aus der Bewegung. Die abgehalfterte Maggie, Bambi, die mittlerweile in einer Kommune ihr Glück gefunden zu haben scheint, den zum Werbefachmann mutierten Lark, der jetzt nicht mehr so genannt werden will, schließlich Froggy, der sein Dasein als Dozent an diversen Universitäten fristet, typischer akademischer Mittelbau, und langsam zum Zyniker mutiert. Zwischendurch trifft er die verbliebenen Mitglieder der Nazgûl und so hat Martin die Gelegenheit, anhand all dieser Stationen zu rekapitulieren, wie aus einer starken Gemeinschaft ein Potpourri Vereinzelter geworden ist, die alle irgendwie versuchen, den Kopf über Wasser zu halten, größtenteils aber die alten Träume und Ideale im alltäglichen Daseinskampf verloren haben. Es ist eine Bestandsaufnahme, die im Roman vor allem in langen und oft gewitzt geschriebenen Dialogpassagen abgehandelt wird.
Spannung erzeugt Martin, indem er den Mord am früheren Promoter immer wieder ins Bewußtsein des Lesers treten lässt und dem Roman damit ein klein wenig Kriminalliteratur einschreibt, was aber im Verlauf nicht wirklich eine Rolle spielt. Wesentlicher ist da schon die Figur des Edan Morse, eines Mannes, der die Nazgûl wieder auferstehen lassen will und sich dafür eines schmächtigen Kerlchens bemächtigt hat, der den Leadsänger ersetzen soll. Morse scheint – Achtung: Fantasy! – über gewisse merkwürdige Fähigkeiten zu verfügen, die vor allem durch steten Blutfluß aus seinem Körper befeuert werden. So schickt er Blair schon lange, bevor dieser sich des Mannes ernsthaft annimmt, teuflische Träume, in denen vor allem der Parteitag der Demokraten 1968 in Chicago – ein für die amerikanische Bewegung ebenso einschneidendes Ereignis, wie es Woodstock, Altamont und der Mord an vier Studenten an der Kent State University in Ohio waren – immer wieder eine Rolle spielt. Hier, so scheinen ihm seine Träume – oder Halluzinationen, wie man will – zu suggerieren, ist etwas gekippt, hier wurde aus Spaß Ernst, hier zeigte die Staatsmacht ohne Skrupel ihr „faschistisches“ Antlitz. Hier trafen – aus der Sicht der Studenten und der Hippies – Gut und Böse aufeinander.
Morse – und neben ihm seine Mitstreiterin Ananda, in die Blair sich natürlich verliebt und die ihn auch erhört und in ihr Bett einlässt, wie eigentlich alle Frauen in diesem Roman offenbar nur darauf warten, endlich wieder mit Sandy Blair intim werden zu dürfen – will den Geist von 68 wieder heraufbeschwören, er will mit Hilfe der Nazgûl zu einem Ende bringen, was damals begonnen wurde. Aufstand! Revolution! Systemwechsel! Und da die Nazgûl, zumindest im Roman, die wichtigste, bedeutendste und revolutionärste Rock-Band von allen waren, soll in einem ungeheuerlichen Crescendo wieder auferstehen, was 1971 in der West Mesa starb. Nur – und das muß vor allem der Zweifler Sandy begreifen, nach und nach – ist eben alles mit allem verbunden, entsteht aus Gutem auch Schlechtes, ist dort, wo Gott wohnt, so man denn an ihn glaubt, auch der Teufel nicht weit. Und Blair bekommt es mehr und mehr mit der Angst zu tun, je näher die Tour, die er als PR-Fachmann begleiten darf, sich der West Mesa und einer Rekonstruktion der damaligen Ereignisse nähert. Und je deutlicher wird, daß Morse da womöglich wirklich geheime Kräfte entfesselt haben könnte, umso deutlicher wird aber auch, daß der Schrecken, das Apokalyptische, eben auch in denen wohnt, denen es vorgeblich um Liebe, Frieden und Solidarität zu tun ist. Martin arbeitet das schon gelungen heraus, wie in jener Bewegung der 60er auch das Überbordende, die Gewalt und der Schrecken schon angelegt waren, schlummerten.
Nun gibt es, nahezu 40 Jahre nach Erstveröffentlichung von Martins Roman, natürlich ganz andere Kult-Bücher mit weitaus moderneren (oder postmoderneren) Themen. All die Revolutionen – Computer, Internet, Cyberpunk, Techno – , die in der Zwischenzeit um sich gegriffen und die globalen Gesellschaften wirklich umgekrempelt haben, lagen noch in der Zukunft, als er sein Epos schrieb. Man darf das auf dem Klappentext abgedruckte Stephen-King-Zitat, es handle sich hier um das beste Buch über amerikanische Popkultur, welches er je gelesen habe, zwar durchaus ernst nehmen, doch sollte man sich vergegenwärtigen, daß King eben genau jener Generation entstammt. Und für die ist es geschrieben. Martin erfreut seine Leser mit jeder Menge Insider-Wissen und -witzen, obwohl das Buch im Grundton eher melancholisch, auch ein wenig nostalgisch ist, in den Dialogen baut er gern und häufig Textzeilen aus Songs – von Simon and Garfunkel bis zu den Dead, also ein sehr weites Spektrum – ein, die kennt, wer sich dieser Zeit und ihrer Musik verbunden fühlt.
Es war ein Aufbruch, die Musik war, wie so vieles, neu. Man kann das – trotz der Reproduzierbarkeit dieser Musik als Konserve – immer noch hören. Wenn Hendrix seine Fender Stratocaster quält, wenn die Airplane zu einem jazzigen Ausflug aus den Songstrukturen oder die Dead zu einer 40minütigen Exkursion ins Land des Jams abheben, dann kann man spüren, wie dieses Gefühl gewesen sein muß. Elektrisch, laut, Töne und Geräusche, die es so noch nie gegeben hatte – in dieser Musik kommt der Aufbruch, den diese Generation wagte, voll zum Ausdruck. Und für diejenigen, die das miterlebt haben, wurde ARMAGEDDON ROCK geschrieben. Ganz sicher auch – Martin, Jahrgang 1948 und damit selbst ein Vertreter der 68er – als Rückversicherung und Selbstbefragung. So wird Spaß an diesem Roman haben, wer noch ein wenig des alten Geistes in sich trägt oder wer sich – weil er ältere Geschwister hatte, die zur richtigen zeit die richtigen Platten gespielt haben – ein wenig von der Liebe zu dieser Musik und ihrer ungebändigten und unbändigen Kraft bewahrt hat. Andererseits sollte auch klar sein: Wer sich in der modernen Popmusik zuhause fühlt, dem Techno verfallen ist oder 68 sowieso für den Grund allen Übels dieser Welt und ihrer verfallenen Werte hält, wird hier wenig finden, das ihn packt. Nein, dies ist ein Buch von einem Fan (man beachte den vorangestellten Text sehr genau!) für Fans. Aber auch von einem kritischen Geist für kritische Geister. Vielleicht findet sich ja noch etwas von der alten Kraft…
Daß die Generation, die um 1968 etwa ihr zwanzigstes Lebensjahr erreicht hatte, damit also voll im Saft stand, ein Bewußtsein für die Gesellschaft und deren Verwerfungen etabliert hatte, in der Musik zwischen den Rolling Stones, den Doors, Velvet Underground und den Westcoast-Psychedelia-Bands wie Jefferson Airplane oder den Grateful Dead ihre Heroen und mit der Musik ein Ausdrucksmittel gefunden hatte, eine Generation, die sich ernsthaft aufmachte, etwas zu verändern, sich auf esoterische Weisheiten und sozialistische Manifeste stützte, um ein System zu stürzen, das sie als korrupt und nicht reformierbar erlebte, und ein neues, auf Liebe und Solidarität grundierendes System errichten wollte, daß diese Generation, die heute so hingebungsvoll gehasst wird, sich irgendwann an den Gestaden der zerborstenen Träume wiederfand und fragen musste, was eigentlich geblieben war von all den Hoffnungen, Idealen und Plänen, die nach und nach im Nebel immer neuer Drogen verblasst waren, liegt förmlich auf der Hand. Nie schien die Möglichkeit wirklicher Revolution und echter Veränderung näher, nie schien der Traum leichter zu verwirklichen, da es damals eine wirkliche, fast einheitliche Jugendbewegung gab und nicht zig verschiedene, mit sehr verschiedenen Lebenseinstellungen, Ansichten und Werten.
Genau an diesem Punkt des Zweifels und der Rückschau befindet sich der Musikjournalist und Schriftsteller Sandy Blair zu Beginn von George R.R. Martins Roman ARMAGEDDON ROCK (erschienen 1983). Er ist einer jener, die es geschafft haben aus den revolutionären Tagen der späten 60er und frühen 70er in ein Leben abseits des Mainstreams zu gleiten. Er, ein steter Begleiter des Rockbusiness, seiner Protagonisten, der Bands und Promoter und Mitbegründer einer im Roman wesentlichen Fachzeitschrift namens Hedgehog, lebt mittlerweile ein solides Leben irgendwo in New York City, hat seine diversen Schrottkarren gegen einen modernen Wagen eingetauscht und führt eine Beziehung zu einer Immobilienmaklerin, die zwar nicht gerade von tiefer Liebe, aber einer gewissen Geborgenheit zeugt.
Bis eines Tages die Kunde von einer Wiedervereinigung der sagenhaften Rockband Nazgûl die Runde macht. Noch erschütternder ist jedoch, daß deren früherer Promoter in seinem Haus tot aufgefunden wurde – er wurde geradezu hingerichtet, man hat ihm das Herz herausgerissen und die Leiche lag auf einem Plakat des letzten Konzerts der Nazgûl, einem legendären Auftritt in der West Mesa im Jahr 1971, der damit endete, daß der Leadsänger auf offener Bühne von einem unbekannten Scharfschützen niedergestreckt wurde. Blair, dessen neuer Roman nicht richtig vorankommen will und dessen Beziehung immer mehr Risse aufweist, lässt sich von seinem ehemaligen Freund und jetzigen Herausgeber des Hedgehog beauftragen, der Sache nachzugehen. Und so macht sich Sandy auf einen Trip in die Vergangenheit, ins Herz der Finsternis jener Generation, die oben beschrieben wurde, und nähert sich damit auch immer mehr dem Geheimnis um die Nazgûl und eine vermeintliche Re-Union der Band.
Nicht von ungefähr hat der Autor die Band nach jenen Wesen benannt, die in J. R.R. Tolkiens DER HERR DER RINGE (erschienen 1954/55) Wanderer zwischen den Welten von Gut und Böse sind, einst Menschen, nun Ringgeister, die dem einen Ring verfallen sind und von Sauron dem Mächtigen, dem Herrn der Finsternis, ausgeschickt werden, ihn zu suchen. Tolkien war neben Lewis Carroll, der die Abenteuer von ALICE IM WUNDERLAND (erschienen 1865) erfand, und J.M. Barrie, dem Autor von PETER PAN (als Bühnenstück 1904 erschienen), dem Jungen, der nie erwachsen wird, einer der Helden der Hippies der 60er Jahre. So verweist Martin auf die popkulturellen Items jener Jahre, greift aber auch das Grundgerüst oder Grundmotiv von Tolkien auf und lässt seinen Sandy Blair in einen epochalen Kampf zwischen Gut und Böse stolpern, der allerdings weitaus psychologischer behandelt wird, als Tolkien es je war.
Da man George R.R. Martin heutzutage vor allem als Autor der Vorlage zur immens erfolgreichen TV-Serie GAME OF THRONES kennt, wird sich der Heyne-Verlag, der den Roman 2016 neu auflegte, gedacht haben, es sei am besten, ihn als Fantasy-Spektakel zu bewerben. Davon sollten sich Anhänger des Mittelalter-Epos auf keinen Fall blenden lassen, denn wenn überhaupt, sind die Anteile an Fantasy im Roman eher marginal. Sandy Blair fährt auf den ersten 350 Seiten durch das Amerika der späten 70er Jahre und besucht ehemalige Freunde aus der Bewegung. Die abgehalfterte Maggie, Bambi, die mittlerweile in einer Kommune ihr Glück gefunden zu haben scheint, den zum Werbefachmann mutierten Lark, der jetzt nicht mehr so genannt werden will, schließlich Froggy, der sein Dasein als Dozent an diversen Universitäten fristet, typischer akademischer Mittelbau, und langsam zum Zyniker mutiert. Zwischendurch trifft er die verbliebenen Mitglieder der Nazgûl und so hat Martin die Gelegenheit, anhand all dieser Stationen zu rekapitulieren, wie aus einer starken Gemeinschaft ein Potpourri Vereinzelter geworden ist, die alle irgendwie versuchen, den Kopf über Wasser zu halten, größtenteils aber die alten Träume und Ideale im alltäglichen Daseinskampf verloren haben. Es ist eine Bestandsaufnahme, die im Roman vor allem in langen und oft gewitzt geschriebenen Dialogpassagen abgehandelt wird.
Spannung erzeugt Martin, indem er den Mord am früheren Promoter immer wieder ins Bewußtsein des Lesers treten lässt und dem Roman damit ein klein wenig Kriminalliteratur einschreibt, was aber im Verlauf nicht wirklich eine Rolle spielt. Wesentlicher ist da schon die Figur des Edan Morse, eines Mannes, der die Nazgûl wieder auferstehen lassen will und sich dafür eines schmächtigen Kerlchens bemächtigt hat, der den Leadsänger ersetzen soll. Morse scheint – Achtung: Fantasy! – über gewisse merkwürdige Fähigkeiten zu verfügen, die vor allem durch steten Blutfluß aus seinem Körper befeuert werden. So schickt er Blair schon lange, bevor dieser sich des Mannes ernsthaft annimmt, teuflische Träume, in denen vor allem der Parteitag der Demokraten 1968 in Chicago – ein für die amerikanische Bewegung ebenso einschneidendes Ereignis, wie es Woodstock, Altamont und der Mord an vier Studenten an der Kent State University in Ohio waren – immer wieder eine Rolle spielt. Hier, so scheinen ihm seine Träume – oder Halluzinationen, wie man will – zu suggerieren, ist etwas gekippt, hier wurde aus Spaß Ernst, hier zeigte die Staatsmacht ohne Skrupel ihr „faschistisches“ Antlitz. Hier trafen – aus der Sicht der Studenten und der Hippies – Gut und Böse aufeinander.
Morse – und neben ihm seine Mitstreiterin Ananda, in die Blair sich natürlich verliebt und die ihn auch erhört und in ihr Bett einlässt, wie eigentlich alle Frauen in diesem Roman offenbar nur darauf warten, endlich wieder mit Sandy Blair intim werden zu dürfen – will den Geist von 68 wieder heraufbeschwören, er will mit Hilfe der Nazgûl zu einem Ende bringen, was damals begonnen wurde. Aufstand! Revolution! Systemwechsel! Und da die Nazgûl, zumindest im Roman, die wichtigste, bedeutendste und revolutionärste Rock-Band von allen waren, soll in einem ungeheuerlichen Crescendo wieder auferstehen, was 1971 in der West Mesa starb. Nur – und das muß vor allem der Zweifler Sandy begreifen, nach und nach – ist eben alles mit allem verbunden, entsteht aus Gutem auch Schlechtes, ist dort, wo Gott wohnt, so man denn an ihn glaubt, auch der Teufel nicht weit. Und Blair bekommt es mehr und mehr mit der Angst zu tun, je näher die Tour, die er als PR-Fachmann begleiten darf, sich der West Mesa und einer Rekonstruktion der damaligen Ereignisse nähert. Und je deutlicher wird, daß Morse da womöglich wirklich geheime Kräfte entfesselt haben könnte, umso deutlicher wird aber auch, daß der Schrecken, das Apokalyptische, eben auch in denen wohnt, denen es vorgeblich um Liebe, Frieden und Solidarität zu tun ist. Martin arbeitet das schon gelungen heraus, wie in jener Bewegung der 60er auch das Überbordende, die Gewalt und der Schrecken schon angelegt waren, schlummerten.
Nun gibt es, nahezu 40 Jahre nach Erstveröffentlichung von Martins Roman, natürlich ganz andere Kult-Bücher mit weitaus moderneren (oder postmoderneren) Themen. All die Revolutionen – Computer, Internet, Cyberpunk, Techno – , die in der Zwischenzeit um sich gegriffen und die globalen Gesellschaften wirklich umgekrempelt haben, lagen noch in der Zukunft, als er sein Epos schrieb. Man darf das auf dem Klappentext abgedruckte Stephen-King-Zitat, es handle sich hier um das beste Buch über amerikanische Popkultur, welches er je gelesen habe, zwar durchaus ernst nehmen, doch sollte man sich vergegenwärtigen, daß King eben genau jener Generation entstammt. Und für die ist es geschrieben. Martin erfreut seine Leser mit jeder Menge Insider-Wissen und -witzen, obwohl das Buch im Grundton eher melancholisch, auch ein wenig nostalgisch ist, in den Dialogen baut er gern und häufig Textzeilen aus Songs – von Simon and Garfunkel bis zu den Dead, also ein sehr weites Spektrum – ein, die kennt, wer sich dieser Zeit und ihrer Musik verbunden fühlt.
Es war ein Aufbruch, die Musik war, wie so vieles, neu. Man kann das – trotz der Reproduzierbarkeit dieser Musik als Konserve – immer noch hören. Wenn Hendrix seine Fender Stratocaster quält, wenn die Airplane zu einem jazzigen Ausflug aus den Songstrukturen oder die Dead zu einer 40minütigen Exkursion ins Land des Jams abheben, dann kann man spüren, wie dieses Gefühl gewesen sein muß. Elektrisch, laut, Töne und Geräusche, die es so noch nie gegeben hatte – in dieser Musik kommt der Aufbruch, den diese Generation wagte, voll zum Ausdruck. Und für diejenigen, die das miterlebt haben, wurde ARMAGEDDON ROCK geschrieben. Ganz sicher auch – Martin, Jahrgang 1948 und damit selbst ein Vertreter der 68er – als Rückversicherung und Selbstbefragung. So wird Spaß an diesem Roman haben, wer noch ein wenig des alten Geistes in sich trägt oder wer sich – weil er ältere Geschwister hatte, die zur richtigen zeit die richtigen Platten gespielt haben – ein wenig von der Liebe zu dieser Musik und ihrer ungebändigten und unbändigen Kraft bewahrt hat. Andererseits sollte auch klar sein: Wer sich in der modernen Popmusik zuhause fühlt, dem Techno verfallen ist oder 68 sowieso für den Grund allen Übels dieser Welt und ihrer verfallenen Werte hält, wird hier wenig finden, das ihn packt. Nein, dies ist ein Buch von einem Fan (man beachte den vorangestellten Text sehr genau!) für Fans. Aber auch von einem kritischen Geist für kritische Geister. Vielleicht findet sich ja noch etwas von der alten Kraft…
May 19, 2013
I wanted to love this book. In fact, I did love it, except for the ending. There are so many things about it that are just fantastic. The music, for instance. Even though you can't actually hear it, you can. You know what it would sound like it if it were real. The Nazgul themselves, sort of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles are wrapped up into one super group. The Tolkien influences. The hints of darkness and the imagery of the end and even the Yeats stuff.
But it just didn't come together for me. This book lacks a proper climax. It sort of fizzles. The big climactic moment culminates with the main character choosing not to act, and this inaction takes all the larger-than-life characters and situations and recasts them as something mundane. The effect on the reader is sort of that we had decided to believe something bad could happen, and then, when it didn't, we feel stupid for having expected it.
I've given this a lot of thought, and I think the only way this novel could have ended was if it were like an Ira Levin novel, or like the ending of the 70s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (yes, the one with Donald Sutherland.) That's the ending this book needed--a blood-dimmed tide loosed on the world, swallowing everything up, and the last sentence only an evil chuckle from Pat Hobbins.
George R. R. Martin wussed out.
And actually, this is beginning to worry me, because I'm afraid that perhaps Martin is not particularly good with climaxes or ending stories properly. I mean, wasn't A Song of Ice and Fire supposed to be three books long? Now, it's stretching out, further and further... Maybe he's not pumping those books out so quickly these days because he doesn't know how to end them. (And so help me, if the battle between the dragons and the Others comes down to a big non-battle like this did, I'm going to be pointing to this review and saying, "I told you so!")
Anyway, lack of a good climax or not, I enjoyed this book, and I'd say it's worth a look.
But it just didn't come together for me. This book lacks a proper climax. It sort of fizzles. The big climactic moment culminates with the main character choosing not to act, and this inaction takes all the larger-than-life characters and situations and recasts them as something mundane. The effect on the reader is sort of that we had decided to believe something bad could happen, and then, when it didn't, we feel stupid for having expected it.
I've given this a lot of thought, and I think the only way this novel could have ended was if it were like an Ira Levin novel, or like the ending of the 70s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (yes, the one with Donald Sutherland.) That's the ending this book needed--a blood-dimmed tide loosed on the world, swallowing everything up, and the last sentence only an evil chuckle from Pat Hobbins.
George R. R. Martin wussed out.
And actually, this is beginning to worry me, because I'm afraid that perhaps Martin is not particularly good with climaxes or ending stories properly. I mean, wasn't A Song of Ice and Fire supposed to be three books long? Now, it's stretching out, further and further... Maybe he's not pumping those books out so quickly these days because he doesn't know how to end them. (And so help me, if the battle between the dragons and the Others comes down to a big non-battle like this did, I'm going to be pointing to this review and saying, "I told you so!")
Anyway, lack of a good climax or not, I enjoyed this book, and I'd say it's worth a look.
September 14, 2015
I really wanted to enjoy this one more than I did.
I love Martin’s work. Don’t get me wrong, I do not have the most extensive Martin collection, but I have read a decent number. Sadly, however, this one makes the cut as my least favourite George R. R. Martin book. Such a thing really disappoints me as I’d been sure that it would win me over in the end.
Alas, this book was made up of moments where I was really enjoying it and moments where I just wanted the whole thing to be over. To make matters worse, there were more of the latter. Such a thing makes it hard for me to gauge just how much I enjoyed this read. It’s a case of when I was enjoying it I was really enjoying it but when I wasn’t I completely hated it. The shift between the two stages was so rapid, with the hatred stages lasting longer, and now a part of me feels as though I have betrayed Martin by disliking this book.
The idea was great, it had the potential to be such an interesting story, yet it did not cut it for me. In fact, I felt as though there was quite a bit of false advertisement with this one. It seemed more like a trip down memory lane for our main character than it did the following of some strange apocalyptic band. It was a weird read, but not the right kind of weird.
Overall, I’d simply been expecting more.
I love Martin’s work. Don’t get me wrong, I do not have the most extensive Martin collection, but I have read a decent number. Sadly, however, this one makes the cut as my least favourite George R. R. Martin book. Such a thing really disappoints me as I’d been sure that it would win me over in the end.
Alas, this book was made up of moments where I was really enjoying it and moments where I just wanted the whole thing to be over. To make matters worse, there were more of the latter. Such a thing makes it hard for me to gauge just how much I enjoyed this read. It’s a case of when I was enjoying it I was really enjoying it but when I wasn’t I completely hated it. The shift between the two stages was so rapid, with the hatred stages lasting longer, and now a part of me feels as though I have betrayed Martin by disliking this book.
The idea was great, it had the potential to be such an interesting story, yet it did not cut it for me. In fact, I felt as though there was quite a bit of false advertisement with this one. It seemed more like a trip down memory lane for our main character than it did the following of some strange apocalyptic band. It was a weird read, but not the right kind of weird.
Overall, I’d simply been expecting more.
June 21, 2023
The Armageddon Rag is very unexpected and quite good. It was sold to me as some kind of SF, but even if we expand that as "speculative fiction", it's a bit of false advertising. It's more a mixture of a road movie and a discussion of the late 60s/early 70s clash between the US mainstream and the hippie/rock/LSD counterculture in the US. The very few fantasy elements can be sufficiently explained by drugs and unreliable narrators - nothing dramatically at odds with normal reality happens.
On the face the book mostly deals with the fictitious band "The Nazgûl", with their early history during the hippie era told largely in the form of interviews and retrospectives making up most of the first part of the novel, while their comeback tour (in the 80s, the nominal "present" the novel is set in) forms the heart of the second half. The story is told from the perspective of former journalist and now writers-block-hampered novelist Sandy Blair, who was asked to write a story about the bloody ritualistic murder of the former manager of the Nazgûl, and eventually becomes hired as the PR manager for their comeback tour.
The book is certainly competently crafted and written - indeed, sometimes it feels a bit over-engineered and over-polished. The middle part is a bit slow, but on the other hand, the somewhat repeated use of (supposed) Nazgûl lyrics and the description of their various performances, past and present, really got into my head, and it felt like I was there with them when HE'S COMING!
I don't know how much GRRM relied on his own experience, but he was born 1948, so he was 19 in 1968, the year when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered and the Chicago Police Department violently attacked demonstrators during the National Democratic Convention, and 20 when Woodstock happened. It certainly feels to a certain degree as if he is eager to present his own perspective on the events of that time.
Overall, an interesting and worthwhile read, if only to experience a very different George R.R. Martin. Not my kind of literature, but I have no regrets.
On the face the book mostly deals with the fictitious band "The Nazgûl", with their early history during the hippie era told largely in the form of interviews and retrospectives making up most of the first part of the novel, while their comeback tour (in the 80s, the nominal "present" the novel is set in) forms the heart of the second half. The story is told from the perspective of former journalist and now writers-block-hampered novelist Sandy Blair, who was asked to write a story about the bloody ritualistic murder of the former manager of the Nazgûl, and eventually becomes hired as the PR manager for their comeback tour.
The book is certainly competently crafted and written - indeed, sometimes it feels a bit over-engineered and over-polished. The middle part is a bit slow, but on the other hand, the somewhat repeated use of (supposed) Nazgûl lyrics and the description of their various performances, past and present, really got into my head, and it felt like I was there with them when HE'S COMING!
I don't know how much GRRM relied on his own experience, but he was born 1948, so he was 19 in 1968, the year when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered and the Chicago Police Department violently attacked demonstrators during the National Democratic Convention, and 20 when Woodstock happened. It certainly feels to a certain degree as if he is eager to present his own perspective on the events of that time.
Overall, an interesting and worthwhile read, if only to experience a very different George R.R. Martin. Not my kind of literature, but I have no regrets.
June 9, 2012
Writers usually have a few stories that bounce around in their heads for years. Some of them eventually make it to the page, while others just circulate and create occasional moodiness or anxiety behind the scenes. As a bonafide, ex-commune hippie... politically, a real "man the barricades" kind of guy, vague feelings of guilt over how I, and my generation, seem to have lost the ideals that seemed so important back then have been circulating for years. I want to sincerely thank George Martin for this book. He has saved me the trouble of trying to confront these issues myself on paper and deal with the fallout.
The Armageddon Rag is a fast-paced mystery, but also a well-tuned personal introspection as the main character sorts through his feelings of "where did it all go?". I identified seamlessly with Sandy, his writer/movement reporter, as he comes to terms with how he fits into the swirling emotions and lost friendships that twenty years can bring as well as a horrific murder. The author uses the device of music lyrics and the music scene of the time to create a plausible connection with occult power and ghostly hordes, driven towards a final battle. He has to make peace with his own demons in order to be able to confront the actions of the demons that may be forcing mankind into perpetual violence and anguish. As a musician, also, I've found myself ascribing earth-changing power to the songs I grew up with, just as Sandy does.
The release date for this book, in 1982, was also important for me in understanding the character's anger and confusion as well as cultural perspectives that only age can understand. The writer's gentle affection for the tortured souls he writes about here (and in all his later work as well),left this reader with a distinct sense of redemption at the end of the book. Peace and Love and Brotherhood weren't just buzzwords, and they haven't died. They're waiting to be picked up and dusted off.
In all, for someone who maybe close to or a bit past sixty, especially anyone who lived the counter-culture, this book will be an enjoyable read, and may also help to lay your own demons down.
Thanks, Man.
The Armageddon Rag is a fast-paced mystery, but also a well-tuned personal introspection as the main character sorts through his feelings of "where did it all go?". I identified seamlessly with Sandy, his writer/movement reporter, as he comes to terms with how he fits into the swirling emotions and lost friendships that twenty years can bring as well as a horrific murder. The author uses the device of music lyrics and the music scene of the time to create a plausible connection with occult power and ghostly hordes, driven towards a final battle. He has to make peace with his own demons in order to be able to confront the actions of the demons that may be forcing mankind into perpetual violence and anguish. As a musician, also, I've found myself ascribing earth-changing power to the songs I grew up with, just as Sandy does.
The release date for this book, in 1982, was also important for me in understanding the character's anger and confusion as well as cultural perspectives that only age can understand. The writer's gentle affection for the tortured souls he writes about here (and in all his later work as well),left this reader with a distinct sense of redemption at the end of the book. Peace and Love and Brotherhood weren't just buzzwords, and they haven't died. They're waiting to be picked up and dusted off.
In all, for someone who maybe close to or a bit past sixty, especially anyone who lived the counter-culture, this book will be an enjoyable read, and may also help to lay your own demons down.
Thanks, Man.
December 19, 2023
Das ist ein Buch über Rock-Musik. Das ist ein Buch über die 68-Generation in der Krise (der 80er Jahre). Das ist ein Buch über die Rolle eines Schriftsteller Sander Blair beim Revival oder Reunion einer legendären Rock-Band mit Namen The Naz-Guls, deren Karriere 1971 durch ein Attentat auf den Leadsänger ein jähes Ende fand. Es ist die Geschichte einer Recherche und eines Verbrechens. Es ist auch ein fantastischer Roman, ein Mystery-Roman, bevor es das Genre überhaupt gab.
Möglicherweise war das der Grund für den relativen Misserfolg des Romans. Martin hat sich danach dem Drehbuchschreiben zugewandt und wurde zuletzt Schöpfer der Universen von "Wildcards" und "Das Lied von Eis und Feuer", die kommerziell viele erfolgreicher sind.
In diesem Buch steckt viel von Martin drin. Mir war bis dato gar nicht so als Vertreter der 68-Generation bewusst. Er spielt jedenfalls seine Stärken in diesem Roman aus. Die Erschaffung von Figuren, die man so schnell nicht vergisst. Überhaupt das mitreißende weil dichte, aber nie reißerische Erzählen! Episch, doch untergründig voller Spannung.
Allein das Ende ist etwas unbefriedigend. Es ist für mich zu positiv und Martin hätte ruhig noch mehr erzählen können.
Möglicherweise war das der Grund für den relativen Misserfolg des Romans. Martin hat sich danach dem Drehbuchschreiben zugewandt und wurde zuletzt Schöpfer der Universen von "Wildcards" und "Das Lied von Eis und Feuer", die kommerziell viele erfolgreicher sind.
In diesem Buch steckt viel von Martin drin. Mir war bis dato gar nicht so als Vertreter der 68-Generation bewusst. Er spielt jedenfalls seine Stärken in diesem Roman aus. Die Erschaffung von Figuren, die man so schnell nicht vergisst. Überhaupt das mitreißende weil dichte, aber nie reißerische Erzählen! Episch, doch untergründig voller Spannung.
Allein das Ende ist etwas unbefriedigend. Es ist für mich zu positiv und Martin hätte ruhig noch mehr erzählen können.
August 15, 2015
Novela que va de más a menos, con buenas ideas que se vienen abajo con un final lejos de las expectativas creadas. Lo mejor viene por la reconstrucción con un toque sobrenatural de la vida de una macro banda reunida tras una década de separación, y cómo Martin indaga en qué pasó con el espíritu contracultural de los 60. Sin llegar a integrar del todo ambos aspectos pero siendo efectivo. Sin embargo la novela encalla en su último tercio cuando llega el momento de construir su clímax; Martin no sabe muy bien qué hacer, se esconde en sueños y visiones un tanto estúpidos y conduce todo a un desenlace poco imaginativo. Aun así tiene detalles a rescatar como la manera de narrar varios conciertos como si estuviéramos escuchando diferentes grabaciones de una misma gira, describiendo las canciones variando pequeños detalles, centrándose en la visión y las sensaciones del protagonista, y erigiendo secuencias catárticas con sus propios ritmos. Curiosa.
June 3, 2011
...The Armageddon Rag is probably the most unusual novel Martin has written. If you look at his development as a writer up to the 1980s one can only wonder what might have happened if he had continued to write novels. The fragment of Black and White and Red All Over that Martin published as part of the collection Quartet: Four Tales from the Crossroads (2001), shows that he was well on his way to delivering another very good and very different novel. One of the good things about the enormous success of A Song of Ice and Fire is that much of Martin's older work is back in print again (in this case despite the nightmare of getting permission from the copyright holders of several dozen songs). Each of these novels is well worth the read but personally I consider The Armageddon Rag the strongest of the four. Read it and expect to want to play lots of very loud music when you're done.
Full Random Comments review
Full Random Comments review
June 14, 2021
I really wanted to like this, the premise was intriguing - set in the 80's, when Martin actually wrote this book, it's about an aging reporter/author named Sandy who lived through the free love 60's and now finds himself diving headfirst into an occultist rabbithole when the ex-manager of infamous rock band The Nazgul is found with his heart ripped out. Each chapter title is lyrics from some of the great musicians of that period, The Who, The Doors etc, this was a nice touch.
🎸
Unfortunately it was 200 pages of Sandy meeting old friends and remembering the politics and music of that time. This whole bit felt like Martin indulging his own memories, though i expect anyone who did live through that period will probably enjoy this whole bit.
🎸
Things ramp up a bit then, and quickly plateau. It isn't until the final 10 pages that things get really interesting, and the ending disappointed the hell out of me!
🎸
Have you read this one? What did you think? Martin clearly has a deep passion for this era and the music it spawned, but man, i struggled through this.
🎸
Unfortunately it was 200 pages of Sandy meeting old friends and remembering the politics and music of that time. This whole bit felt like Martin indulging his own memories, though i expect anyone who did live through that period will probably enjoy this whole bit.
🎸
Things ramp up a bit then, and quickly plateau. It isn't until the final 10 pages that things get really interesting, and the ending disappointed the hell out of me!
🎸
Have you read this one? What did you think? Martin clearly has a deep passion for this era and the music it spawned, but man, i struggled through this.
May 4, 2020
This book’s been on my unread pile for a little while now and I’m not really sure why. I think it’s because the last time I read a GRRM book, it was the buddy read of Dying of the Light that I did with Todd the Librarian, and that wasn’t very good at all. I also knew that this particular edition has super tiny print and so that didn’t exactly endear it to me.
I actually didn’t know anything about this book when I picked it up, and I didn’t even notice the drum kit with the Eye of Sauron on the front cover, which probably would have given me a clue. It turns out that this book is pretty much perfect for me, because it follows a journalist investigating a series of crimes that befall the members of a 60s rock ‘n’ roll band called the Nazgul.
For me, it was a little bit of a strange read because there are a lot of similarities between this and my own current work-in-progress, which I’ve been describing as Lord of the Rings meets Spinal Tap. Luckily, despite the fact that Martin is clearly influenced by the fantasy genre (didn’t he write some famous series or other?), he doesn’t go all in on it here, and there are no elves and dwarves knocking around like there are in my book. My book is also supposed to be funny, while Martin’s is more of a hard-boiled detective.
That meant that I could read this one and enjoy it without having to worry too much about it putting me off from or losing faith in my own work. Better still, it brings together a whole bunch of different storytelling elements that I like and ultimately resulted in a book that was a true pleasure to read. Not bad really, considering it’s been sat on my shelves for ages and I thought I’d ran out of good stuff to read.
I’d recommend this one without hesitation, but especially if you’re a fan of the 60s and books about music. It was almost Joe Hill-ish. Good stuff!
I actually didn’t know anything about this book when I picked it up, and I didn’t even notice the drum kit with the Eye of Sauron on the front cover, which probably would have given me a clue. It turns out that this book is pretty much perfect for me, because it follows a journalist investigating a series of crimes that befall the members of a 60s rock ‘n’ roll band called the Nazgul.
For me, it was a little bit of a strange read because there are a lot of similarities between this and my own current work-in-progress, which I’ve been describing as Lord of the Rings meets Spinal Tap. Luckily, despite the fact that Martin is clearly influenced by the fantasy genre (didn’t he write some famous series or other?), he doesn’t go all in on it here, and there are no elves and dwarves knocking around like there are in my book. My book is also supposed to be funny, while Martin’s is more of a hard-boiled detective.
That meant that I could read this one and enjoy it without having to worry too much about it putting me off from or losing faith in my own work. Better still, it brings together a whole bunch of different storytelling elements that I like and ultimately resulted in a book that was a true pleasure to read. Not bad really, considering it’s been sat on my shelves for ages and I thought I’d ran out of good stuff to read.
I’d recommend this one without hesitation, but especially if you’re a fan of the 60s and books about music. It was almost Joe Hill-ish. Good stuff!
September 7, 2018
The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity.
How to summarise our world in one sentence.
This book was deep, and I mean seriously deep.
It was a long and meandering journey, often purely miserable, yet it hauled me through to the finale on the edge of my seat.
The characters and story felt so real by the end, that I was genuinely anxious for the conclusion. The musical references throughout set the scene and drew me into nostalgia for a decade I didn't live through. And I want to buy the Nazgul's albums...
An absolutely stellar book, with first class writing, that feels as relevant today as it would have done in 1983.
4.5 stars.
How to summarise our world in one sentence.
This book was deep, and I mean seriously deep.
It was a long and meandering journey, often purely miserable, yet it hauled me through to the finale on the edge of my seat.
The characters and story felt so real by the end, that I was genuinely anxious for the conclusion. The musical references throughout set the scene and drew me into nostalgia for a decade I didn't live through. And I want to buy the Nazgul's albums...
An absolutely stellar book, with first class writing, that feels as relevant today as it would have done in 1983.
4.5 stars.
November 1, 2024
I like this as rock n roll fantasy, the music writing is great and the look back at the 60s and 70s from the early 80s is also interesting. I like the premise, but the pacing is weird and kept throwing me off by veering away from what I was most interested in. The portrayal of women is highly frustrating and most of the characters, especially Sandy, are at least a bit exasperating.
So a very mixed reading experience, I'm glad I've read this because some of it is very atmospheric and memorable, and some parts are really well executed, but I'm not sure the parts came together for me to make and entirely satisfying whole.
So a very mixed reading experience, I'm glad I've read this because some of it is very atmospheric and memorable, and some parts are really well executed, but I'm not sure the parts came together for me to make and entirely satisfying whole.
June 23, 2023
Tolle Geschichte. Hat mich bis auf den Schluß begeistert. Der hat mir nicht wirklich gefallen.
November 2, 2022
Ein faszinierender Trip in die Zeit des Flower-Power...
Im Jahr 1971 sind die Nazgûl am Zenit ihrer Karriere angelangt, als deren charismatischem Sänger Patrick Henry Hobbins bei einem Open Air Konzert vor 60.000 Zuschauern auf offener Bühne von einem Scharfschützen der Schädel weggeblasen wird. In jener Nacht stirbt nicht nur der »Hobbit«, wie Hobbins genannt wird, sondern die gesamte Band, eine Legende. Der Mörder wird nie gefunden.
Die Romanhandlung von Armageddon Rock setzt zehn Jahre später ein, als es zu einer weiteren Bluttat kommt.
Jamie Lynch, ehemaliger Promoter und Manager der Band, wird am Jahrestag von Hobbins' Tod in seinem Haus bestialisch ermordet. Lynch liegt auf einem alten Plakat der Nazgûl, und im Hintergrund läuft eine Platte der Band, »Music To Wake The Dead«, während jemand ihm das Herz aus dem Leib reißt.
In dieser oder ähnlicher Form schon gehört, möchte man meinen, doch weit gefehlt, denn George R.R. Martins Roman stammt aus dem Jahr 1983 und hat nichts von seiner Faszination verloren. Zudem entwickelt sich, was anfängt wie ein Krimi oder ein Psycho-Thriller, schnell zu einem Parforceritt, der nicht nur in die amerikanische Geschichte der Sechziger und Siebziger Jahre eintaucht, sondern vor allem knietief in die Musik jener Ära.
Im Verlauf der Handlung wird, ähnlich wie in Twin Peaks, die Suche nach dem Mörder zur Nebensache, und fast von Beginn an hat man das Gefühl, ein zwischen zwei Buchdeckel gepacktes Rockalbum zu hören, das mit jeder weiteren Seite einen mehr in seinen Bann schlägt.
In der bei FanPro erschienenen deutschen Erstausgabe aus dem Jahr 1986 lautete der Untertitel des Romans passenderweise »Ein Langspiel-Roman in Stereo«, und für Stephen King ist Armageddon Rock »der beste Roman über die Popmusik-Kultur der 60er Jahre« überhaupt...
Im Jahr 1971 sind die Nazgûl am Zenit ihrer Karriere angelangt, als deren charismatischem Sänger Patrick Henry Hobbins bei einem Open Air Konzert vor 60.000 Zuschauern auf offener Bühne von einem Scharfschützen der Schädel weggeblasen wird. In jener Nacht stirbt nicht nur der »Hobbit«, wie Hobbins genannt wird, sondern die gesamte Band, eine Legende. Der Mörder wird nie gefunden.
Die Romanhandlung von Armageddon Rock setzt zehn Jahre später ein, als es zu einer weiteren Bluttat kommt.
Jamie Lynch, ehemaliger Promoter und Manager der Band, wird am Jahrestag von Hobbins' Tod in seinem Haus bestialisch ermordet. Lynch liegt auf einem alten Plakat der Nazgûl, und im Hintergrund läuft eine Platte der Band, »Music To Wake The Dead«, während jemand ihm das Herz aus dem Leib reißt.
In dieser oder ähnlicher Form schon gehört, möchte man meinen, doch weit gefehlt, denn George R.R. Martins Roman stammt aus dem Jahr 1983 und hat nichts von seiner Faszination verloren. Zudem entwickelt sich, was anfängt wie ein Krimi oder ein Psycho-Thriller, schnell zu einem Parforceritt, der nicht nur in die amerikanische Geschichte der Sechziger und Siebziger Jahre eintaucht, sondern vor allem knietief in die Musik jener Ära.
Im Verlauf der Handlung wird, ähnlich wie in Twin Peaks, die Suche nach dem Mörder zur Nebensache, und fast von Beginn an hat man das Gefühl, ein zwischen zwei Buchdeckel gepacktes Rockalbum zu hören, das mit jeder weiteren Seite einen mehr in seinen Bann schlägt.
In der bei FanPro erschienenen deutschen Erstausgabe aus dem Jahr 1986 lautete der Untertitel des Romans passenderweise »Ein Langspiel-Roman in Stereo«, und für Stephen King ist Armageddon Rock »der beste Roman über die Popmusik-Kultur der 60er Jahre« überhaupt...
September 21, 2025
Autor Sandy hat Schreibhemmung und nimmt einen Auftrag seines arschlöchrigen Ex-Chefs an: Eine Reportage über den Tod des Musikmanagers Jamie Lynch, der die berühmte Rockband Nazgul gemanagt hat, bis ihr Sänger erschossen wurde. Sandy findet raus, dass der Mord Lynchs etwas mit Nazgul zu tun hat und eine Art Ritualmord war. Er beginnt zu recherchieren und besucht seine alten Kumpels aus den 60ern.
Martins Schriftstellerkarriere lief prima, als dieses Buch überraschend zu einem kommerziellen Flop wurde. Das warf ihn zimlich aus der Bahn und brachte ihn dazu, das Schreiben von Prosa für etliche Jahre aufzugeben und ins Filmgeschäft zu wechseln.
Ich habe das Buch schon länger im Regal und war einerseits neugierig aber auch skeptisch. Er schrieb hier was ganz anderes als man bis dorthin von ihm gewohnt war. Es geht um die 60er-Jugendkultur. Ich bin eine halbe Generation jünger und mir gefällt weder die Musik sonderlich, noch interessiere ich mich für die "Gegenkultur".
Ich schätze aber Martin als Erzähler sehr und so gefiel mir der erste Teil ganz gut. Doch es ließ nach. Er geht bei seiner Darstellung seines Themas geradezu systemmatisch-schematisch vor. Mithilfe von Besuchen des Protagonisten Sandy bei verschiedenen Musikern und alten Freunden klappert er die verschiedenen Aspekte ab. Welche Typen von Leuten gab es und was wurde aus ihnen nachdem die Revolution nicht stattfand? Das wurde mit der Zeit ein wenig dröge. Auch weil die Figuren schon etwas klischeehaft sind (was man ja von GRRM sonst nicht kennt).
Später kommt dann der übersinnliche Aspekt immer mehr zum tragen, sein Vorgehen erinnert etwas an Stephen King.
Leider gefiel mir der Roman dann immer weniger und wenn auch einige Schilderungen (z.B. der Konzerte) recht gelungen sein mögen, war ich froh, als ich mit dem Roman fertig war. Sorry George, aber das war wirklich nicht so toll.
Martins Schriftstellerkarriere lief prima, als dieses Buch überraschend zu einem kommerziellen Flop wurde. Das warf ihn zimlich aus der Bahn und brachte ihn dazu, das Schreiben von Prosa für etliche Jahre aufzugeben und ins Filmgeschäft zu wechseln.
Ich habe das Buch schon länger im Regal und war einerseits neugierig aber auch skeptisch. Er schrieb hier was ganz anderes als man bis dorthin von ihm gewohnt war. Es geht um die 60er-Jugendkultur. Ich bin eine halbe Generation jünger und mir gefällt weder die Musik sonderlich, noch interessiere ich mich für die "Gegenkultur".
Ich schätze aber Martin als Erzähler sehr und so gefiel mir der erste Teil ganz gut. Doch es ließ nach. Er geht bei seiner Darstellung seines Themas geradezu systemmatisch-schematisch vor. Mithilfe von Besuchen des Protagonisten Sandy bei verschiedenen Musikern und alten Freunden klappert er die verschiedenen Aspekte ab. Welche Typen von Leuten gab es und was wurde aus ihnen nachdem die Revolution nicht stattfand? Das wurde mit der Zeit ein wenig dröge. Auch weil die Figuren schon etwas klischeehaft sind (was man ja von GRRM sonst nicht kennt).
Später kommt dann der übersinnliche Aspekt immer mehr zum tragen, sein Vorgehen erinnert etwas an Stephen King.
Leider gefiel mir der Roman dann immer weniger und wenn auch einige Schilderungen (z.B. der Konzerte) recht gelungen sein mögen, war ich froh, als ich mit dem Roman fertig war. Sorry George, aber das war wirklich nicht so toll.
Read
June 10, 2017You'd think that mixing GRR Martin and detective novels, which are one of my favorite genres, would be a good thing. Sadly it didn't work out. In my case because this book is...how Stephen King put it...? "The best novel concerning the American pop music culture of the sixties I’ve ever read." -- and my knowledge and appreciation of pop culture -- any aspect of it, is practically nil. It's wildly different from the other fantasy stories that Martin wrote, with parts of it feeling weirdly biographical. Mostly though, I got bored reading the lovesong to rock n' roll classics while waiting for the mystery / detective bit to kick in so yeah, not my thing.
March 24, 2013
This is very important book for my relationship with mr. Martin. :-))
When "Song of Ice and Fire" started to get published in my country (Croatia) I was in a phase when I wanted to boycott all US products, because of US attack on whatever country US was attacking at that time.
At that point, major question for me was: shall I buy this "Game of Thrones" book by this US writer, or shall I boycott it as any other US product?
Fortunately, I have previously read "Armageddon Rag" and I've decided that the man who wrote this book couldn't be blamed for US politics.
And this is how my boycott failed.
I'm a bit more selective now :-))
When "Song of Ice and Fire" started to get published in my country (Croatia) I was in a phase when I wanted to boycott all US products, because of US attack on whatever country US was attacking at that time.
At that point, major question for me was: shall I buy this "Game of Thrones" book by this US writer, or shall I boycott it as any other US product?
Fortunately, I have previously read "Armageddon Rag" and I've decided that the man who wrote this book couldn't be blamed for US politics.
And this is how my boycott failed.
I'm a bit more selective now :-))
February 7, 2009
I was really disappointed and didn't even finish it. I love George RR Martin, but this book sucked. It was like one of those cheesy James Patterson mystery novels but even cheesier.
August 1, 2019
Mildly dated, hugely nostalgic, moderately dark and psychedelic, and very TV-friendly.
February 1, 2024
En författare tidigare verksam som journalist får i uppdrag att skriva om ett olöst mord på en man som tidigare var manager åt ett rockband. Bra story, driv och lagom med utsvävningar.
Ska jag vara lite negativ har jag väldigt svårt att ta fiktiva rockband på allvar. Speciellt när de är djupt influerade av Tolkien. Att låttitlar och textrader översätts till svenska blir dessutom lite extra pajigt. Men struntar man i det (och att GoT-mannen är, hör och häpna, rätt så sexfixerad och gubbsjuk) är detta en riktigt bra bok med starka Stephen King-vibbar.
Ska jag vara lite negativ har jag väldigt svårt att ta fiktiva rockband på allvar. Speciellt när de är djupt influerade av Tolkien. Att låttitlar och textrader översätts till svenska blir dessutom lite extra pajigt. Men struntar man i det (och att GoT-mannen är, hör och häpna, rätt så sexfixerad och gubbsjuk) är detta en riktigt bra bok med starka Stephen King-vibbar.
May 23, 2019
Strange yet addictive, puzzling and thrilling.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 472 reviews