If you're a metal head, you need to buy this book immediately and start reminiscing about the stories, nitpicking at stuff he forgot, gloating over the excellence of this genre in general, and marveling at the devotion of the author.

The non pretentious title notwithstanding, this book is encyclopedically comprehensive enough to have been released as a leather-bound hardcover. I'm glad it wasn't, however, as that would have meant sacrificing the cover art. The illustrations throughout the book are excellent, and make a great book even better.

The first few chapters are based on the categories attacked by the PMRC, (which were a bunch of liberal democrats fronted by Al Gore's wife, for those of you too young to remember the actual witch hunt), the bane of 1990- era metal heads.

After the metal trivia based on the skewing of the PMRC rating system, the rest of the book features lists and contributions from celebrities in metal bands and related industries who live and breathe metal. Every topic related to metal is captured, analyzed, devoured, digested and excreted for your reading pleasure. No matter how much you think you know about metal, chances are you'll still learn something new.