Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Armageddon Rag-George R. R. Martin

The Armageddon Rag


George R. R. Martin

Bantam, Jan 30 2007, $16.00

ISBN: 9780553383072



In the 1960s Sandy Blair was a happy protesting radical. Under two decades later, Sandy is an unhappy establishment novelist in Brooklyn. He knows he has met the system and the system won. Hedgehog magazine publisher Jared Paterson offers Sandy an assignment. Sandy reminds the a-hole he fired him seven years ago, which Jared gleefully acknowledges that he sold the rag to the mainstream as he points out both of them sold out. The publisher wants his former reporter to do a story on the murder of Jamie Lynch, who once was promoter of the Satanic band Nazgûl. Excited as he has not been since he became a pulp fiction writer, Sandy agrees but on his terms.



Sandy learns that Nazgûl is making a comeback though the band collapsed with the murder of the lead singer Patrick Henry Hobbins during a live performance. Apparently promotor Eden Morse has replaced the late Hobbins with plastic surgery enhanced singer Larry Richmond who she calls Pat. Eden asks Sandy to promote Nazgûl as he did in their heyday.



This is a reprint of an early 1980s tale that takes a close look at how aging hippies fondly recall their protest days of less than two decades earlier through Sandy’s investigation. The paranormal elements never quite gel and the plot feels dated as only hippie geezers whose memories recall the good while ignoring the bad and the ugly will appreciate this tale. Still us geriatrics and DOPs (dirty old people to be politically correct) will appreciate this engaging tale with its references to the counterculture of our youths.



Harriet Klausner

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