The Diamond Signature is what Penny Rimbaud considers his most important work. It formed the basis for the band CRASS, who revolutionized both punk rock and politics in a blistering seven year career, which found them reviled by the mainstream, and revered by hundreds of thousands in the underground they helped to create. "The first draft of The Diamond Signature was completed in 1974 and since then has been revised countless times. I have always regarded it as an organic work that could be added to or taken away from at will—several sections of it were adapted for us by CRASS, the anarchist punk band with whom I was drummer and lyricist, other sections have been liberally scattered through subsequent novels."—from the preface.