Favorite music-oriented novel?

[RickdaPrick]

Anyone have any favorites that they can recommend? Particularly if they have a prog/fusion angle.

I just finished Children of the Neon Bamboo; now I thirst for more music related fiction. The description of the prog concert at the end is the best description of a concert I've read since the Power of One. If you read and are on this board, it's the perfect book for you. Can't recommend enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Children-Neon...CK55YB1P&psc=1

[pb2015]

The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe

[helicase]

The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe

Gets my vote too

[interbellum]

The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe

A newer novel which has plenty of (prog)rock references is Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell.

Also very recently released is the novel Lost Souls: A Fictional Journey Through 50 years Of Pink Floyd by Edwin Ammerlaan.

[mozo-pg]

Close To Edge : The Story of Yes - Chris Welch

[Digital_Man]

Close To Edge : The Story of Yes - Chris Welch

That's not a novel but a biography. I read it too and it was a very good one.

[Unfrankie Valli]

I remember enjoying Slade in Flame by John Pidgeon. It came out after the surprisingly good film but it isn't a straight novelization, being different in a lot of ways and much, much grittier. Very well-written too by a guy who was a cryptic crossword setter for the Daily Telegraph.

The film's on youtube if anyone's interested. Better than the other cash-in 1970s Brit films with musicians in. Noddy Holder's great in it.

[veteranof1000psychicwars]

I remember enjoying Slade in Flame by John Pidgeon. It came out after the surprisingly good film but it isn't a straight novelization, being different in a lot of ways and much, much grittier. Very well-written too by a guy who was a cryptic crossword setter for the Daily Telegraph.

The film's on youtube if anyone's interested. Better than the other cash-in 1970s Brit films with musicians in. Noddy Holder's great in it.

I love that movie! Big Noddy fan here.

[Mister Triscuits]

The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor.

[Digital_Man]

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (it was later made into a movie with Jack Black and John Cusack but I read it before the movie came out).

There wasn't any prog or fusion in it that I can remember but it was very much a music oriented book/movie and I recommend it to most music fans (those who like stuff beyond prog) especially those who like lists.

[GuitarGeek]

Not really music related, but Spider Robinson drops a lot of interesting folk and blues allusions into his books. In one of the Lady Sally books, one of the main characters mentions hearing music coming from the parlour, saying that it sounded like Mac Rebbenac on the piano (you may know Mac by his stage Dr. John). There's also a line in one of the books where the narrator is talking about the time he was bragging to someone at a bar about his guitar playing skills, until he realized he was talking to Amos Garrett (and then explains "You remember Maria Muldaur's Midnight At The Oasis? THAT Amos Garrett!").

The late Mick Farren also wrote several science fiction novels, after his career as a vocalist ended. One in particular, called Necrom, is about a washed up former rock star who finds himself mixed up in a JFK-esque assassination plot involving people from an alternate universe. Again, not really music related, but there's some good allusions in a few places that I thought were fun.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

A two-way tie for me.

1. Sacred Locomotive Flies, by the late great Richard A. Lupoff. One of the first psychedelic science fiction novels, it's about the adventures of a band called Sacred Locomotive. At one point, they play 21st Century Schizoid Man. Very funny.

2. The Armageddon Rag, by George R.R. Martin, back when he could actually finish writing a book. The Nazgûl were an American band who put out a few albums and were becoming very big when their singer (an albino midget nicknamed "Hobbit") was shot on stage, just before they could play (for the first time on stage) their side-long epic, "The Armageddon Rag." A mysterious promoter seeks to reform the band, and presents them with a new singer ... who is an albino midget (how rare must those be?) and even sings like "Hobbit." He sets them on a tour, intending for it to end at the same stage where the fateful concert took place, and to climax in the band, finally, playing the Rag. The story is told from the point of view of a music reporter who, covering the tour, finds himself at that last concert with a gun in his hand...

[Lopez]

2. The Armageddon Rag, by George R.R. Martin, back when he could actually finish writing a book. The Nazgûl were an American band who put out a few albums and were becoming very big when their singer (an albino midget nicknamed "Hobbit") was shot on stage, just before they could play (for the first time on stage) their side-long epic, "The Armageddon Rag." A mysterious promoter seeks to reform the band, and presents them with a new singer ... who is an albino midget (how rare must those be?) and even sings like "Hobbit." He sets them on a tour, intending for it to end at the same stage where the fateful concert took place, and to climax in the band, finally, playing the Rag. The story is told from the point of view of a music reporter who, covering the tour, finds himself at that last concert with a gun in his hand...

I was just going to mention that one. Great book, and so far the only one I've read by Martin.

My honorable mention would be Outside the Gates of Eden by Lew Shiner.

[rdclark]

My honorable mention would be Outside the Gates of Eden by Lew Shiner.

I wanted to nominate a different Shiner book, Glimpses, in which our protagonist finds himself visiting the histories of Hendrix, The Doors, and the Beach Boys, and finding music by them that never (or almost) was.

[Mister Triscuits]

Sacred Locomotive Flies, by the late great Richard A. Lupoff.

Ooh, I'll have to check that one out. His Space War Blues is a favorite of mine.

A newer novel which has plenty of (prog)rock references is Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell.

Oh yes, that's a goodie.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Ooh, I'll have to check that one out. His Space War Blues is a favorite of mine.

Space War Blues has been a top-five book for me for almost fifty years, i.e., since it first came out (and in a sense, even earlier: since I read the original novella, "With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama" in Again Dangerous Visions). Lupoff was an underrecognized writer, largely because he refused to do the same thing twice. He was also a really cool human being whom I was grateful to know...

[Mister Triscuits]

Again Dangerous Visions

You probably already know about this, but after all these years, Last Dangerous Visions, or at least what's left of it, is finally being published October 1.

[dropforge]

You probably already know about this, but after all these years, Last Dangerous Visions, or at least what's left of it, is finally being published October 1.

Yes! I can't wait.

[Mister Triscuits]

1. Sacred Locomotive Flies, by the late great Richard A. Lupoff. One of the first psychedelic science fiction novels, it's about the adventures of a band called Sacred Locomotive. At one point, they play 21st Century Schizoid Man. Very funny.

Just finished this. Pretty wild! It reminds me a lot of the Illuminatus! books.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

It reminds me a lot of the Illuminatus! books.

...which it precedes by a few years.

If you liked that, you might also like his Space War Blues, or, for other reasons, Chester A. Anderson's The Butterfly Kid...

[Mister Triscuits]

If you liked that, you might also like his Space War Blues, or, for other reasons, Chester A. Anderson's The Butterfly Kid...

Indeed! I own both of those, the former in the Gregg Press hardcover.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Indeed! I own both of those, the former in the Gregg Press hardcover.

Both my Gregg h/c and my original p/b are autographed, so nyaah.

[mozo-pg]

That's not a novel but a biography. I read it too and it was a very good one though.

Thanks. I misread the first post. It is an excellent book.

[Digital_Man]

Did anyone here read Songmaster by Orson Scott Card? I remember my brother telling me it seemed like a book Jon Anderson would like. I started to read it a long time ago but couldn't get into it and didn't get very far. I believe it was OSC's first novel (or at least one of his earliest).

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Did anyone here read Songmaster by Orson Scott Card? I remember my brother telling me it seemed like a book Jon Anderson would like. I started to read it a long time ago but couldn't get into it and didn't get very far. I believe it was OSC's first novel (or at least one of his earliest).

Between his homophobia and his tendency to torture children in his books, I found Card unreadable after a few books.