Scan barcode
A review by tani
The Armageddon Rag by George R.R. Martin
3.0
I wasn't really sure what to expect when I went into this book. I'd never heard of it before it came up on my list of award nominees, and although I've read George R. R. Martin before, it's all been A Song of Ice and Fire, which is a very different beast. What I got wasn't terrible, but for me, it wasn't great.
This book relies pretty heavily on nostalgia, I think. Sandy, the main character, is still very stuck on the sixties, even though this book is set in the nineties (I think). His every action is dictated by that nostalgia, from the relationships he builds, the choices he makes, and the books he writes. To be honest, I wasn't feeling it. I'm an eighties child, so the sixties mean very little to me personally. And I'm not the type to look back at the nineties and reminisce about how much better they were than nowadays. I'm more the type to look forward to the future and anticipate how things are going to be better. So, I really failed to connect to Sandy on that level, and I think that the book suffered for that.
The story itself was fine. It moved pretty quickly and I think it had some good emotional resonance in several of the sections. In particular, the character of Slum and his situation were really affecting for me. I would have liked some more of the fantasy elements, but I'm biased that way. I maybe would have liked to have more insight into some of the characters other than Sandy, as he wasn't exactly someone I was dying to read about.
I did like the ending, the choice that Sandy made, and the way that it resonated through the last chapter. Still, the entire experience was rather lackluster for me. It's definitely a book that I'm glad to be done reading.
This book relies pretty heavily on nostalgia, I think. Sandy, the main character, is still very stuck on the sixties, even though this book is set in the nineties (I think). His every action is dictated by that nostalgia, from the relationships he builds, the choices he makes, and the books he writes. To be honest, I wasn't feeling it. I'm an eighties child, so the sixties mean very little to me personally. And I'm not the type to look back at the nineties and reminisce about how much better they were than nowadays. I'm more the type to look forward to the future and anticipate how things are going to be better. So, I really failed to connect to Sandy on that level, and I think that the book suffered for that.
The story itself was fine. It moved pretty quickly and I think it had some good emotional resonance in several of the sections. In particular, the character of Slum and his situation were really affecting for me. I would have liked some more of the fantasy elements, but I'm biased that way. I maybe would have liked to have more insight into some of the characters other than Sandy, as he wasn't exactly someone I was dying to read about.
I did like the ending, the choice that Sandy made, and the way that it resonated through the last chapter. Still, the entire experience was rather lackluster for me. It's definitely a book that I'm glad to be done reading.