https://speculiction.blogspot.com/2023/11/review-of-armageddon-rag-by-george-rr.... ( )

Torn between two and three stars. I would just LOVE to give this book five stars and say that it's a cult classic that wasn't appreciated as it should've been, because it really does have it all going for it, doesn't it? GRRM writing a mystery-fantasy novel that is a nostalgia trip to the rock music of the sixties? It should be so good, but it's not.

The biggest problem is the main character. OH MY GODS, how did GRRM write this shit and then go on to create all those wonderful GoT characters? I don't care if they're evil, AT LEAST THEY'RE SOMETHING. This MC is the most boring piece of shit, ever such a waste of paper to write his thoughts on. The only thing I can explain away this book with, is to say that is was some sort of method writing, where the book was written the same way the main characters writes his books.

Because of course he's a writer. Of course he's a former hippie living with a stuck-up girlfriend who can't appreciate his need for a wild life style. She's seriously the only reasonable character in the book, I cheered like hell when they broke up. And afterwards she's like "um, yeah, let me be a goddamn adult and fix this while you go wallop in self-pity you piece of trash.

And why would you nicknamed someone called Ananda "'Nanda"? It doesn't sound good, you could just as well say Ananda because that flows from your tongue better. Sorry I just really hate nicknames that are just there because everyone needs one or something.

All the characters are aggressively clichéd, and idk where the MC got that high horse of his, but he never gets off it and I don't understand. He's a boring dick most of the story, but for some reason he is still the choosen one (not literally) that has to save the world or whatever. I can't believe GRRM goes on about how he loves Tolkien, but that everything is too black and white in Tolkien's books when he has written THIS. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???? (Seriously, the scenes at Slum's house, with the military dad, felt like a fucking parody, they were sooooo terrible.)

Plus the fact that no one, not even the narrative, thinks its gross that the band - Nazgûl - commits statutory rape fucking constantly with all their groupies. I get it, that's how it goes, but it it still groooooooss.

Reading this I'm almost (almost!) happy that the world is still a shitty capitalist place and that the hippis are dying out. Fucking finally. ( )

Un Martin agli esordi, non quello che preferisco, ancora lontano da ciò che sarebbe diventato poi con "Le cronache". Uno strano mistery che parte in un modo e prosegue in un altro. Lento nella parte centrale, si riprende sul finale. Non brutto, ma mi è difficile dare un giudizio definitivo. ( )

Sandy Blair, a novelist who mentally never left the 60's counter culture movement, learns that a famous music promoter from those days has been brutally and ritualistically murdered. Hired by the music magazine editor who once fired him, he goes off to investigate. The promoter had a complete lock on the career of the band of the movement, The Nazgul. These things lead him on a cross country trip, from Maine to LA, to find the old band members and his old friends and girlfriends from the 'good old days'. He hates the 80's and everything about it.

Sandy constantly debates the merits of the movement, what they did during college and what the 80's have brought. This was written in 1983 and Martin was not trying to write about the future, so it is set in mid-80's also. That makes it a little strange, because the mid-80's are only 15 years after 1969, but sometimes the characters make it seem like it was 30 years in the past.

It starts out as a murder mystery, has a lot of elements of a rock biography and is all about 60's counter-culture and music. I thought it was very interesting. ( )

Got tired of waiting for the next GOT book so I read one of his very early works and it was very good. No surprise there right. Loved all his musical references in this book. ( )