Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
metal fans are smarter than this, 10 Nov 2007
Although this book is a pretty good basic introduction to the world of Iron Maiden, my main feeling after I had finished reading it was of annoyance. Several reasons motivate this:
1. The front cover and artwork are far from inspiring to a Maiden fan. It lacks the classic logo and portrays one of the ugliest Maiden pictures I have ever seen.
2. The editing is cheap and sloppy, with many typos and several unformatted and unjustified paragraphs. Combined with point number one, the overall presentation of the book is cheap and unprofessional. Doesn't anyone edit and proofread these works? Or do they think that metal fans are not smart enough to figure these things out?
3. Apart from the typos, the book is rife with poor grammar and spelling mistakes. Here are a few "pearls". Bruce Dickinson "compliments" the band. Now I'm sure he complimented them when he auditioned, but I'm also sure that the writer meant that Dickinson COMPLEMENTS the band. On another occasion Dickinson "would of" instead of "would've". Now, I don't mind the occasional spelling error. Mistakes do happen. But this is just bad grammar, and when I spend the money to buy a book, I want it to be well written. It is an insult to the reader to write this poorly, especially from a journalist who is supposed to know better.
4. For an unauthorized biography, there is surprisingly little background information on the various crises that hit the band. No reasons why Dickinson left, no reasons why Bayley left, no details on fights, arguments. Nothing. Disappointing to say the least.
5. The book is also padded with too much opinion. One of my favorites is the writers argument that grunge did not kill metal in 1992. I profoundly disagree. Grunge wiped out dozens of famous bands within months, despite the continuing success of some. He instead blames Wayne's World for contributing to the demise of metal bands like Iron Maiden, blaming the movie for showing metal fans with "mullet hairstyles". Pardon me, but what hairstyle did ALL the Maiden members wear? Did it stop them from selling albums? Another bizarre observation is that Somewehere in Time was written entirely by Harris, making it a weaker album which is absurd as Smith wrote one third of the album.
For these reasons, among others, I can only recommend this book to the new Iron Maiden fan that wants to learn the basics of their career and who doesn't mind zigzagging around typos, poor formatting, weak grammar and a fair amount of opinion.
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Passable but pedestrian, 30 Dec 2006
The book description above paints this to be a comprehensive and weighty tome. I was therefore disappointed by the fairly shallow blow by blow accounts of each album and VERY glossed over and sanitised accounts of the various tiffs and strife. There's little in here that most fans won't already know, and nothing that can't be found for free on the various Maiden fan websites.
Having said that, the photos in the middle are nice, if sparse, and the accounts of the early days are interesting.
I'd recommend this book to a Maiden newbie (so long as they didn't mind the frequent typos and patronising tone of some of the book) but for most fans the only thing worth reading it for is the interview with Derek Riggs at the end.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best of the beast ..., 4 Dec 2007
Certainly this book does not deliver on its promises, and is no less revealing than the Mick Wall book, despite Wall's offering being an official release and therefore likely to gloss over some harsh truths.
There are a few things that let this book down. One is factual errors. For example, "Gangland" is an instrumental, it is claimed at one point. Now these things aren't harmful, but it shows at best poor proof reading, at worst Stenning has no idea about his subject. It also calls in to question the validity of other claims if he couldn't get basic facts correct.
Secondly is the author's constant dwelling on somewhat irrelevant topics. This manifests itself on the first page proper, where we have a paragraph dedicated to West Ham's history during the 60s and 70s. Similarly, talking about Holy Smoke we have a paragraph or two dedicated to Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist on whom Bruce based the Jimmy Reptile character. One feels that Stenning was trying to fill the book up due to a dearth of quality material from first-hand sources close to the band. This manifests itself moreso with the pointless interviews tacked on to each chapter. Want to know what erstwhile keyboard player Tony Moore, a man who spent a lunch break in Maiden during the late 70s, was up to? Wonder no further, although I suspect most of us couldn't give two hoots. Once again, it suggests that Stenning's primary sources were somewhat poor, due to the lack of novel input from the band, and others closely related.
Finally, and this is perhaps more personal taste, I found Stenning's style a little lumpen. In particular, his album reviews can be a little ernest, reading like Patrick Bateman musing about Huey Lewis or Phil Collins.
Stenning does a good job of cobbling together material from secondary sources: official releases, other interviews, old Kerrang interviews and other magazines. The material that Neil Kaye contributed, as about the closest source to the band Stenning had access to, is quite illuminating. For example, we find that he hated Blaze and thought he couldn't sing. Elsewhere there are other tid-bits: Holy Smoke was originally mooted as a title track for what eventually became No Prayer.
Aside from the official bio there aren't many Maiden books around that are in print. However, this is not going to offer much new if you have read that or are otherwise a long-term fan of the band. On the flip side, there are too many mistakes in basic information to make this valuable to a Maiden newbie. It will take time and patience to wade through Stenning's somewhat stodgy style, and there is very little return for doing so. In the end, I admired Stenning for drawing together diverse material from secondary sources, but the lack of interesting and relevant primary sources hampered the material. I was left with the feeling that, as a fan, I could easily have written something of equivalent value, given time and access to a decent collection of Kerrang back-issues.
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