"Excellent! That was superb! It's one of the very few guides that gets under the skin of the music and interprets what was in the mind of its creators."

Bruce Dickinson
"Martin has the most thorough knowledge of heavy metal of anybody I've ever met."

Dee Snider
"Very well researched. There are people in there I've never even heard of and I'm supposed to be in the business. Good book, well thought out, well reviewed, very well researched, as I say. Anybody directed towards that kind of music, would not do worse than to get a copy.”
Lemmy
"It was refreshing to see your enthusiasm for sort of the less popular Zeppelin albums. Cheery reading."
John Paul Jones


OK, first to repeat the vitals: The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal is my book of 3,750 heavy metal record reviews, released in late '97. The book is 540 pages of tiny text, no pictures, 600,000 words of me spouting off. The book also contains a full-length, 19 track metal sampler of bands on the Century Media label, a glossary of terms, my rock lists (29 categories), and a list of the 400 or so albums I rated as a 9 or a 10.

The book's been reviewed in about 40 or 50 places. One day I'll get off my butt and find a few quotes. Well, probably not. Anyway, what else can I tell you? Last count, there were 59 reviews of it at www.amazon.com. The book's in its fourth printing. It's caused a lot of controversy. I still get mail about it every day.

Some stuff's done really well, other genres aren't. I've pretty much nailed the '70s and have most of the main stuff form the '80s and the early '90s covered. Black metal and death metal get glossed over pretty badly (this will one day be fixed: my education with respect to black metal has grown dramatically). But as a generalist goes, I've sniffed out the best in many, many different styles. I'm not so sure there's even one other person on the planet that could have done this without heavily favouring one or two styles, and subsequently leaving even bigger gaps in other ones. Having said that, with the pace things are going, I may be the first and last metal generalist to attempt this. I've been cajoling many of my writer friends to do what I've done but within the genres they know so well. The days of being a generalist are over. The only reason I will continue is because the groundwork is laid. And, like I say, I think I'm a pretty good generalist.

This book is completely sold out!