Book Review: Three Chords of Chaos by James Chambers

Three Chords of Chaos by James Chambers

The Bad-Ass Faerie Tale Series

Paperback, 154 pages

Published May 24th 2013 by Dark Quest (first published April 21st 2013)

A few years back I went to the borderlands writer’s boot camp. I met several fantastic and talented young writers but the one who impressed me the most was James Chambers. I made sure I got his short story collection Ressurection House from Dark Regions. I was really excited to read this short book in the Bad-Ass Faerie series which I believe started in an anthology which these characters first appeared.

3COC is the story of Gorge who is a wizard thrown out from another realm called the Kingdom. He gathers magic by playing in rock/punk bands and taking energy from the audience. Other bands want to him to jam with them, record labels want to sign him. Using the tropes of classic Faerie tales Chambers does a fantastic job of spinning them in punk setting. I of course enjoyed his take.

The writing is evocative and does a good job getting the feeling of a live show. Chambers uses the structure of a song to plot this book. It is a neat gimmick that works perfectly. It has a couple cool bonuses like lyrics to the songs, a playlist and cool afterword. One of the reasons I write punk fiction myself is because punk is hardly ever depicted even close to realistic. Thankfully not a problem here.

Big thumbs up. It’s short but powerfully written and a fun read that is weird and like nothing else I have ever read.