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Literature / The Armageddon Rag

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Well I'm here to make things right,
To fight the last good fight,
And they're playing the armageddon rag, oh!
Playin' the armageddon rag!
— "Armageddon/Resurrection Rag"

Back in the 60s, the fictional rock band Nazgûl was at the top of their game, and a rallying cry for the burgeoning hippie movement. However this all ended September 20, 1971, when their lead singer, Patrick Hobbins, was murdered on stage in New Mexico. The band broke up and the world moved on.

At least, until the band's old manager, Jamie Lynch, is found dead. Alternative movement 'zine The Hedgehog calls its old editor Sandy Blair to write a feature piece about the murder, seeing as how he covered the band in the Hog's past. Along the way to interviewing the surviving members of the band and hopefully solve the murder, Blair reconnects with his own troupe of flower-power hippie revolutionaries he used to pal around with in the 60s.

His leads go nowhere and the story evaporates, but a mysterious man named Edan Morse offers - or should we say plots - to reunite the band with a new lead singer. Sandy is called in to be Nazgûl's PR man for the upcoming tour. Despite his misgivings, he accepts. However what seems like a typical reunion tour turns to the surreal and macabre as Sandy uncovers the sinister motivations behind the reunion.

The book was published in 1983 by George R. R. Martin well over a decade before A Song of Ice and Fire was a twinkle in his eye. As a meditation on 60s rock music and the flower-power movement, it's most famous for being a colossal commercial failure, so much so that it almost killed Martin's career and causing him to retreat into film and TV Writing for a few years. Despite this, the novel remains in print.


The novel The Armageddon Rag provides examples of:

  • Abusive Parents: Sandy's buddy Slum, who's father is a stereotypical American macho-man who writes trashy, but successful, thriller novels. He has Slum declared mentally invalid and cuts him off from the world, and rules all his kids through fear and intimidation.

  • Asshole Victim: Nobody is particularly choked up that Jamie Lynch is dead. The band members acknowledge he's the reason they found such success in the past, but he locked them into one of the all-time shittiest lifetime contracts possible.

  • Author Appeal: George R. R. Martin must really love 60s rock music.

  • Billed Above the Title: Now that George is a #1 times bestseller for A Song of Ice and Fire, his name is much larger than the title on reprints.

  • Audience Participation Song: The song Ragin', which the guitarist Maggio sings lead on.
    "I'm just so mad!" - Maggio
    "How mad are you?" - Crowd
    "I'M RAGIN!" - Maggio

  • Bedmate Reveal: Sandy wakes up not remembering anything from the night before. Then he sees Ananda. It's revealed they actually did NOT have sex that night, but do many, many times after.

  • Body Horror: What happens to Edan Morse as the black magic takes its course.

  • The Body Parts That Must Not Be Named: Very much averted when it comes to females. Vagina is written multiple times, and nearly every woman's breasts are described, sometimes multiple times. Male genitals are only referred by euphemisms though.

  • Body Snatcher: Through black magic, the dead Hobbins literally possesses Larry during the concerts, but only when they play the old songs.

  • Clone by Conversion: A new singer is found for the band, a kid who looks almost exactly like the late Patrick Hobbins. The kid, Larry Richmond, undergoes facial surgery to look even more like Hobbins.

  • Cool Car: Sandy Drives a Mazda RX-7, which he names Daydream. He uses on more than one occasion to get laid. It works.

  • Deadpan Snarker: This is basically Sandy Blair's entire character. He's immensely proud of it.

  • Deal with the Devil: Edan Morse made some kind of ritual sacrifice. As the band keeps playing gigs, he keeps bleeding more and more profusely.

  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Sandy keeps having prophetic dreams, and a recurring one features a woman being sacrificed on-stage. He later realized it's about a groupie who hangs around Maggio, based on her scream in real life matching the one heard in his dream.

  • Double Standard: When Sandy returns home from investigating Lynch's murder to find his girlfriend in bed with another mad, he's furious. This despite the fact he hooked up with two women on the road since they both agreed to an an open relationship.

  • The Dragon: Gort, to Edan Morse. He's a hulk of a man and obeys orders without question.

  • Dreadful Musician: The reunited Nazgûl. Sandy can tell at the first rehearsal they don't have the magic anymore. The biggest offender is Larry Richmond who, despite being a near identical clone, just isn't the same as their old singer.

  • Epic Rocking: Nazgûl is famous for their extended jams, Grateful Dead style.

  • Freudian Trio: The three surviving members of the Nazgul; the sleazy drug-addicted paedophile Rick Maggio is the Id, the intellectual, morally-atuned and slightly pompus Peter Faxon is the Superego, and Gopher John is the Ego.

  • Functional Addict: Maggio the guitarist. He loves being a junkie and continues taking speed pills throughout their reunion tour, before and and after going on-stage. It doesn't seem to impair his performance, but he is very unpleasant in person. Lynch, the old promoter, once gave him drugs as a Christmas present. He was thrilled.

  • Happy Ending: The dark magic crisis is averted, Sandy has written a hit novel based on his experiences, and the Nazgûl are back with a better singer and about to cut a new album.

  • Heavy Mithril: What the band plays. Kind of obvious considering they are called Nazgûl.

  • Heel–Face Turn: Edan Morse realizes what they are doing is wrong, but far, far too late to stop it.

  • History Repeats: The reunion tour of Nazgûl is eerily similar to their 1971 tour that ended with the death of their singer. This is all on purpose as part of a black magic ritual.

  • How the Mighty Have Fallen: The surviving members of Nazgûl. Gopher John the drummer is running a hole in the wall club, Maggio the guitarist is playing gigs with a bunch of scrubs to get in a girl's pants. Faxton the bass player is also the primary songwriter so he's doing fine with royalty checks coming in, but secretly yearns to be back on top. All three are eventually convinced to reunite, one way or another.

  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Edan Morse's plot is to incite a riot that causes mass anarchy, in order to rebuild a better world. He realizes it won't progress past all the death and destruction and tries to call it off but unfortunately, Ananda sees it more as a case of Utopia Justifies the Means.

  • Kick the Dog: Slit the dog's throat to be exact.

  • The Lancer: Ananda Caine, who is Edan Morse's right-hand woman, and is fiercely competent. in the end, she kills Edan and becomes the main antagonist.

  • Longest Song Goes Last: Side B of Nazgûl's last album is entirely taken up by the 23 minute Armageddon/Resurrection Rag.

  • New-Age Retro Hippie: Sandy and his comrades from the 60s were all this. Some still are, some fell out of it. Part of the reason Sandy took the assignment in the first place was to reconnect with them.

  • Most Writers Are Writers: The main character, Sandy Blair, is a novelist who got his start editing a 60s revolutionary 'zine.

  • Only Sane Man: Once Sandy find out what is going on behind the scenes, he's the only one who questions it and tries to stop it.
    • in the band, Peter Faxton, the bass player and principle songwriter. The drummer is an alcoholic who wants nothing to do with the Nazgûl anymore, the guitarist is a junkie, pedophile psychotic, and the singer is, well, dead. Since all the publishing rights go to him, he has the least need to reunite. He just does it for the music.

  • The Reveal: The one who kicked off the plot by killing Lynch in the first place was Ananda.

  • Self-Harm: Edan Morse, the Nazgûl's new benefactor, has scars all over his left hand from cutting himself. Sandy finds out later it's part of a blood sacrifice. He gets much, much worse later on.

  • Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: One of the defining examples in the fictional universe of the book. The guitarist, Maggio, is a legendary junkie and pedophile.

  • Shout-Out: Lots and lots to 60s rock music in general, and the flower-power movement as a whole. Each chapter beings with a quote from a famous song, which roughly mirrors the chapter's plot, and other lyrics are sprinkles throughout the text.

  • Technician vs. Performer: Patrick Hobbins oozed charisma from every pore. Larry puts on a respectable impression and is actually better at guitar, but he just can't rile up the crowd in the same way.

  • Title Drop: Many times. The Armageddon Rag is the name of the band's extended jam from side B of their most famous album, so it get talked about a fair bit. Technically it's The Armageddon/Resurrection Rag, but it's usually just referred to as Armageddon Rag.

  • Twin Threesome Fantasy:Rick Maggio gets to live this fantasy. Then it turns out the twins were underage, and he finds himself being blackmailed with photos of the event.

  • A World Half Full: Half of the novel is Sandy having philosophical conversations with his friends and acquaintances about the way the world is, versus how they envisioned it in their idyllic youths.

  • Writer's Block: Sandy takes the assignment because he's stuck on page 37 of his novel. He never finishes it and ends up throwing the pages out a taxi window.

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