hellegade's review
5.0
I must admit that I have never read anything like Metallic Dreams before and it completely took me by surprise. I bought the book after listening to the Melissa Craig & Charity Parkerson podcast where Mark was a guest star. I thought that if the girls were impressed with him and his writing, then I had to read it.
The first surprise was how poetic I found the writing; it certainly wasn’t what I expected of a book full of heavy metal. It sucked me in and forced me to keep reading.
The second surprise was how Spark and the Blood brothers wormed their way into my heart and made me care how they’d end up. They are a bunch of depraved and violent Scottish heavy metal dudes that’ll make you laugh till your stomached hurts one minute and teary eyed on their behalf the next, while reminding you of your love of heavy metal.
You follow the life’s of Spark MacDubh and the Blood Brothers from childhood into adulthood where they struggle to re connect in their search for heavy metal fame. On the way they encounter demons and dead rock legends in a mass of blood and violence, depravity, lost dreams, life, death, love and heavy metal.
I loved the book from the beginning to the end.
The first surprise was how poetic I found the writing; it certainly wasn’t what I expected of a book full of heavy metal. It sucked me in and forced me to keep reading.
The second surprise was how Spark and the Blood brothers wormed their way into my heart and made me care how they’d end up. They are a bunch of depraved and violent Scottish heavy metal dudes that’ll make you laugh till your stomached hurts one minute and teary eyed on their behalf the next, while reminding you of your love of heavy metal.
You follow the life’s of Spark MacDubh and the Blood Brothers from childhood into adulthood where they struggle to re connect in their search for heavy metal fame. On the way they encounter demons and dead rock legends in a mass of blood and violence, depravity, lost dreams, life, death, love and heavy metal.
I loved the book from the beginning to the end.
rach's review
3.0
There were so many disturbing things about this book. The over-the-top graphic sexual descriptions, coupled with the amount of sex that Spark and his claimed to have, even as nobody teenagers, was pretty unbelievable. The worst encounters were the Rape, followed closely by the Redemption (or Vengeance, depending in which way you're looking at it). If you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about; if you haven't, trust me, you don't want to know more. There's also the weird flying dreams, the witchy premonitions, the encounters with the literal Devil, including a trip to Hell and back, and the body-morphing channeling of a dead rock star.
I don't want to waste much time talking about the stuff I disliked, though. I'd rather mention the stuff I did like, what kept me reading through the end.
Spark and his bandmates and blood brothers are interesting characters who grow and change throughout the course of the book. Each of them has a little crazy inside, and has to battle that in different ways. What I love most about them, is how dedicated they are to one another, both in childhood and once Spark has reunited them as adults. They might physically fight and call each other names, but in the end, they have one another's backs to the death, no matter what.
Spark is a interesting guy. For someone who believed so whole-heartedly in the Band, it's hard to see how he could let so much time pass without contact. That it took dying and coming back to life to set him back on the right path isn't so much for a surprise as a seeming inevitability. Part if me wonders why it took so long. I love how doggedly he pursued the other guys, how dedicated he was to making sure they were the best they could be. And I loved his relationship with Sunshower, Oz's daughter and the cutest, spunkiest little metalhead in the world.
The rest of the characters were fascinating, too. DT is the crazy-eyed sex fiend whose jail-time introspection mellowed him, allowing him to eventually transform into his true riff-shredding, guitar-rock-god self. Sunshower called him Mr. Tight Pants with girl's hair for a reason, and that's how I picture him. Ozzy is a giant bear of a man, broken and wounded at times, but always softhearted and eventually healing. Iain was a dreamer lost in a fantasy world, both when he insisted on only playing air guitar as a teenager and when he repeatedly gave himself concussions to transform into a dead rock star. Iain probably made the least sense to me. Then there's Pete, the über-intelligent, analytical, demon-fearing keyboardist, who studied the effects if sound perhaps a bit too much. These guys really felt like my friends and family by the end, and I was happy to see each of their successes roll in.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how funny a lot of this book was. When the guys get together, they can be pretty hilarious, and most of their tour had me laughing. The gay German metal band they toured with cracked me up.
There were lots of other fun side characters, who maybe didn't have a big pierce of the action, but still made an impact. Unfortunately, almost all of the female characters had very little character development or depth. Sunshower was adorable, but she's really the only female we get to know very well, and even that us very limited. She might have an old soul, but she's still a kid. The rest of the females didn't have much to them. All we know about Kimberley, the love of Spark's life, is that she was a ballbuster who shit the rest of the high school guys down, they had a magical connection that made their sex fantastic, she was heart-broken when Spark moved back to Scotland, Spark never stopped loving him, and she magically tracked him down after he ended up famous. Lisa, Pete's girlfriend, loved him since high school for his deep musical abilities and basically hated the rest of the guys. The rest of the females were in and out if their lives quickly.
So, is this book for you? I enjoyed it for the most part, but you should be prepared and willing to read the following before you start: lots of swearing, vulgar description of sex acts, lots of talk about various sexual organs, both homoerotic and homophobic talk, racist slave/master/kkk sex roleplay, demonic appearances, witches and strange dreams. The funniness and the characters makes up for the uncomfortable for the most part, but you should be prepared, and don't be afraid to skim if it gets too much.
As an endnote, I feel like I should mention that I'm probably not the intended audience for this book. I'm not actually a heavy medal fan, so my knowledge of all the musical references in here were very superficial. If you are well-versed in the history of medal, then you will probably get a lot more out of the musical aspects than I did. And that's ok.
I don't want to waste much time talking about the stuff I disliked, though. I'd rather mention the stuff I did like, what kept me reading through the end.
Spark and his bandmates and blood brothers are interesting characters who grow and change throughout the course of the book. Each of them has a little crazy inside, and has to battle that in different ways. What I love most about them, is how dedicated they are to one another, both in childhood and once Spark has reunited them as adults. They might physically fight and call each other names, but in the end, they have one another's backs to the death, no matter what.
Spark is a interesting guy. For someone who believed so whole-heartedly in the Band, it's hard to see how he could let so much time pass without contact. That it took dying and coming back to life to set him back on the right path isn't so much for a surprise as a seeming inevitability. Part if me wonders why it took so long. I love how doggedly he pursued the other guys, how dedicated he was to making sure they were the best they could be. And I loved his relationship with Sunshower, Oz's daughter and the cutest, spunkiest little metalhead in the world.
The rest of the characters were fascinating, too. DT is the crazy-eyed sex fiend whose jail-time introspection mellowed him, allowing him to eventually transform into his true riff-shredding, guitar-rock-god self. Sunshower called him Mr. Tight Pants with girl's hair for a reason, and that's how I picture him. Ozzy is a giant bear of a man, broken and wounded at times, but always softhearted and eventually healing. Iain was a dreamer lost in a fantasy world, both when he insisted on only playing air guitar as a teenager and when he repeatedly gave himself concussions to transform into a dead rock star. Iain probably made the least sense to me. Then there's Pete, the über-intelligent, analytical, demon-fearing keyboardist, who studied the effects if sound perhaps a bit too much. These guys really felt like my friends and family by the end, and I was happy to see each of their successes roll in.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how funny a lot of this book was. When the guys get together, they can be pretty hilarious, and most of their tour had me laughing. The gay German metal band they toured with cracked me up.
There were lots of other fun side characters, who maybe didn't have a big pierce of the action, but still made an impact. Unfortunately, almost all of the female characters had very little character development or depth. Sunshower was adorable, but she's really the only female we get to know very well, and even that us very limited. She might have an old soul, but she's still a kid. The rest of the females didn't have much to them. All we know about Kimberley, the love of Spark's life, is that she was a ballbuster who shit the rest of the high school guys down, they had a magical connection that made their sex fantastic, she was heart-broken when Spark moved back to Scotland, Spark never stopped loving him, and she magically tracked him down after he ended up famous. Lisa, Pete's girlfriend, loved him since high school for his deep musical abilities and basically hated the rest of the guys. The rest of the females were in and out if their lives quickly.
So, is this book for you? I enjoyed it for the most part, but you should be prepared and willing to read the following before you start: lots of swearing, vulgar description of sex acts, lots of talk about various sexual organs, both homoerotic and homophobic talk, racist slave/master/kkk sex roleplay, demonic appearances, witches and strange dreams. The funniness and the characters makes up for the uncomfortable for the most part, but you should be prepared, and don't be afraid to skim if it gets too much.
As an endnote, I feel like I should mention that I'm probably not the intended audience for this book. I'm not actually a heavy medal fan, so my knowledge of all the musical references in here were very superficial. If you are well-versed in the history of medal, then you will probably get a lot more out of the musical aspects than I did. And that's ok.
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