Iron Maiden - Updated Edition: The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Beast

by Neil Daniels

Few bands have as widespread global appeal as Iron Maiden. This up-to-date book showcases the band in all its beastly glory. Formed in 1975 by a young, East London bass player named Steve Harris, Iron Maiden went on to become one of the most successful heavy metal acts in history. With an estimated 85 million albums sold worldwide, the band remains hugely popular. Iron Maiden is the updated edition of the first-ever complete, illustrated retrospective of the band. Music journalist Neil Daniels relates the band's entire history and provides a complete, up-to-date discography, while respected heavy metal journalists and Iron Maiden experts, including Ian Christie, Martin Popoff, and Mick Wall, analyze the recordings. The stories behind the band's formation, roster changes, recordings through 2015's The Book of Souls , and tours through 2016 are complemented with nearly 500 images, including live performance and candid off-stage photographs, and memorabilia, including handbills, gig posters, backstage passes, buttons, ticket stubs, and, of course, Eddie, Iron Maiden's iconic Derek Riggs-created mascot. This new edition of Iron Maiden is required reading for any heavy metal fan. The book covers the compilation From Here to Eternity (2011); the CD/LP/DVD/Blu-ray release of En Vivo! (2012); the Maiden World Tour (2012-2014) to North America, Europe, and South America; The Book of Souls album (2015); and the 2016 tour.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2016

About the author

Based in the UK, Neil Daniels has written about rock, metal and pop culture for a wide range of magazines, fanzines and websites.

He has penned books on Judas Priest, Robert Plant, Linkin Park, Bon Jovi and Journey, and co-authored Dawn Of The Metal Gods: My Life In Judas Priest & Heavy Metal with original Judas Priest singer/co-founder Al Atkins. His third book on Judas Priest is Rock Landmarks: Judas Priest's British Steel.

His acclaimed series, All Pens Blazing: A Rock & Heavy Metal Writer's Handbook Volumes I & II, collects over a hundred original and exclusive interviews with some of the world's most famous rock and heavy metal scribes. His other duel collection, Rock 'N' Roll Mercenaries - Interviews With Rock Stars Volumes I & II, compiles over sixty interviews with many well-known rock stars and rock writers.

His books have so far been translated into Brazilian, Bulgarian, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Swedish with more foreign titles in the works.

2012 saw the publication of his books on Metallica, Iron Maiden and You Me At Six.

2013/14 saw the release of his books on AC/DC, Pantera, UFO, ZZ Top, Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden.

It's not just rock 'n' roll. Matthew McConaughey – The Biography was published in November 2014 by John Blake Publishing. 2015 saw the release of more film biographies, including actor Martin Freeman and film director J.J. Abrams.

His Createspace books include AOR Chronicles, Rock & Metal Chronicles, Hard Rock Rebels - Talking With Rock Stars, Rock 'N' Roll Sinners - Volumes I, II & III, Rock Bites, Love It Loud and the fictional rock 'n' roll novel, It's My Life, amongst several more weighty tomes. And then there's a book on former American Idol contestant turned Queen frontman Adam Lambert. Also, In A Dark Room - Exploits Of A Genre Fan collects his articles, features and reviews on books, comics, TV and film and is also published by Createspace. His 'Casual Guide' series (also published by Createspace) includes titles on Neal Schon, Bryan Adams, Richie Sambora, Rob Halford and Brian May. Further Createspace works are planned for 2015/16.

His reviews, articles and interviews on music and pop culture have been published in The Guardian, Classic Rock Presents AOR, Classic Rock Presents Let It Rock, Rock Sound, Record Collector, Big Cheese, Powerplay, Fireworks, MediaMagazine, Rocktopia.co.uk, Get Ready To Rock.com, Lucemfero.com, musicOMH.com, Ghostcultmag.com, Drowned In Sound.com, BBCNewsOnline.co.uk, Carling.com, Unbarred.co.uk and Planet Sound on Channel 4's now defunct Teletext service.

He has also written several sets of sleeve notes for Angel Air and BGO Records.

He can be found on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Tumblr. He has author pages on both Amazon US and UK sites. Further details can also be found on Wikipedia.

His primary interests are music, films and books. He has a degree in Film Studies.

His official website is www.neildanielsbooks.com.

Please take some time to check out his latest business venture - an online reselling business called otherrealmscollectibles primarily dealing with action figures, toys and superheroes merch as well as t-shirts, books, CDs and DVDs. Favourites include Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Toy Story and Disney. There are hundreds of items for sale.

Here is the link: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/otherrealmsc...

And here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aag/main/...

Reviews

[arturo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being Iron Maiden my favorite band, this is a good book. Most because all the pictures, setlists and date tours documented. The book itself is a brief overview of Maiden history since the beginning and through the last release THE BOOK OF SOULS (if yiu get the updated version of the book) But it doesnt get feep on stories, process and another details of the bands bio (for that purpose, get the RUN TO THE HILLS book)
UP THE IRONS!

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! An unmissable treasure chest for the fans! It might be an 'unauthorised' biography, but who cares? Neil Daniels, being a journalist and biographer, has solid credential to lead this guided tour. More: he enrolled a whole team of henchmen, as solid and respected as he is (Gavin Baddeley, Ian Christe, Martin Popoff, Mick Wall... what a cast!) that just gives a stronger punch to this already powerful book.

The whole history of the band, from shabby pubs of the East End of London to selling millions of tickets as far as South America and the Indian subcontinent? Checked! Each album (up to 'The Book of Souls' -here's the updated edition) reviewed in details by insightful journalists? Checked! Luscious illustrations and photographs, from the band and Eddie to a multitude of memorabilia from around the world, all laid out gorgeously (a feast for the eyes!) pages after pages? Checked! Snippets of history, from behind the songs to behind the stage and behind who's who? Checked! Absolutely AWESOME!

Some (point of detail) will find the writing a bit rushed, giving the impression to read a string of interviews put together. I personally loved it: Maiden in their own words, with Neil Daniels to put it all together. Honestly: one of the best book on Iron Maiden out there! Superb.

[Stormcrow Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I've been an Iron Maiden fan since the 80s. My first album was Piece of Mind and I was fortunate enough to see them twice on the Powerslave tour and many times thereafter. I just saw them on October 8 at the Forum in Los Angeles. But the impetus that brought me to pull this book from my shelf and finally crack it open and dive into its history was the death of Paul Di'Anno. I wanted to read up on those early years while cranking the first two albums (though I was already listening to "Phantom" and Murders" since it's nearly Halloween and those are part of my yearly Halloween playlist). So I was excited to dig into this endeavor, and I did enjoy it overall. There are a lot of great photos, I loved seeing the T-shirt designs and promotional posters, and it was nice seeing various tour set lists. Unfortunately, the overall text of the book isn't anything most Iron Maiden fans don't already know. Each album has a page review, usually by another writer, and most of them are pretty terrible. Then there's the repetition. We hear about Rod Smallwood, then have a sidebar telling us everything already mentioned. Even the photo captions felt lazy. Aside from captions saying where a photo was taken, if it actually had a bit of description, it was always taken from the text so you would read it twice in each chapter.

Overall, I enjoyed it enough, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to any but the hardest of hard Iron Maiden fans. Ultimately, there isn't anything here you couldn't just find online.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent pictorial history of Iron Maiden, from their start as a pub-crawl punk/metal hybrid band in the late 70s to the multi-million dollar classic metal juggernaut it has become, with reviews of each album (and subsequent tour) from their self-titled debut to 2016's Book of Souls. It's definitely written from a fan perspective, as author Neil Daniels tends to throw a couple of kidney punches at competing metal acts like Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest, but the generosity he extends even towards the absolute failure that was the Blaze Bayley-era of 90s Maiden is commendable. My only issue with this book is that it tends to read more like a recounting of tour dates than a solid history of how the albums were produced, and any issues the band faced are either glossed over or otherwise played down to preserve the image of Iron Maiden as nothing less than the stalwart gods of metal (which I do agree with but I also like a story to go with my gods, y'know?).

[D'Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough. It's like a guided tour through Maiden's discography. If you dig the band you'll dig this. Clearly a lot of attention and care went into putting this book together & in updating it to include Book of Souls. I enjoyed reading this and listening along through Iron Maiden's catalog as I did so.

[Kerrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book! It gives me in-depth details about Iron Maiden's history. Man, have they gone a long way! It also gets me going to listen to songs that I've never listened to before now. I recommend this to any Iron Maiden fan (other than myself).

[Ryan Crisp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must for fans of The Beast. Comprehensive, wonderful images, I really enjoyed reading the many album reviews and discovering new stories from the band's colourful history. Daniels has put together the ultimate collection with painstaking detail. Definitely recommend this for fans.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great history of a great band

[Gaetan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for any fans of Maiden!

[Michael Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun but lightweight account of the band’s history, very much from a fan perspective and largely avoiding any real criticism (beyond knocking some of the albums).

[Jason Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read. Lots of background pictures, articles, backstory of all their albums up to Book of Souls. All the history talking points. Nothing new to seasoned Maiden fans, but it’s definitely an enjoyable read!