The book is 354 pages, comprising my deepest dig into Rush ever. It’s twice as long as my other Rush books and hopefully it’ll stand as the most definitive book on this period, although there’s no stopping Rush scholarship.

It’s a textured hard cover book, sweetly appointed with foil and embossing. There are two eight-page colour sections, but other than that, it’s a 126,000-word examination of the origins of the band up to the end of 1979.

Toward that end, there’s extensive discussion of the childhood and teen years, leading into separate chapters on Rush, Fly by Night, Caress of Steel, 2112, All the World’s a Stage, A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres.

Inspired by what I had to do on my recent Led Zeppelin and Clash books (i.e. writing 500 words on every single song), there’s far more song-by-song analysis than I stuck in any of my previous Rush titles. But there’s also a trove of unseen first-hand interview material with the band as well as engineers, producers, managers and other industry movers an’ shakers.

Book II will be called Limelight: Rush in the ‘80s and book III will be called Driven: Rush in the ‘90s and “In the End”.

This is now completely sold out.

Please click here to order the softcover edition.