Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground is a book by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind. It is an account of the early Norwegian black metal scene, with a focus on the string of church burnings and murders that occurred in the country around 1993. A film adaptation of the book was directed by Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund in 2018. The book has been the subject of controversy over the alleged political leanings of author Michael Moynihan, though he denies these allegations.<ref name=NOTORIOUS>Dundas, Zach. "The Notorious Michael Moynihan</ref> Publication historyLords of Chaos was originally published by Feral House in 1998 (). A second, revised edition was released in 2003 and expands the original book by fifty pages (). A German edition was published in 2002 with a respective revised edition following in 2005 (). Summary The book focuses on the scene surrounding the extreme heavy metal subgenre black metal in Norway between 1990 and 1993. The first few chapters give an outline of the progression of heavy metal from bands such as Black Sabbath, Coven and Black Widow to proto-black metal bands such as Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost, Sarcófago, Hellhammer and Venom, and finally to the early Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. The book then details the April 1991 suicide of Mayhem frontman Per Yngve "Dead" Ohlin and the formation of a radicalized "inner circle" around Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, based out of his small black metal retail shop Helvete (Norwegian for "hell") in Oslo, Norway. In 1992 and 1993, members of the group became connected with a series of crimes, starting with the arson of the Fantoft stave church on June 6, 1992, although the book mentions that there had previously been a "small, ineffectual fire at Storeveit Church". Church arsons continued but with a steady decline up until 1995. (The cover of Lords of Chaos shows a "19th-century Swedish church in flames".) An interview in a Norwegian newspaper given by Burzum founder Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes, also a member of the Helvete group, leads to a media outrage condemning the arsons as acts of Satanism. On August 21, 1992, Bård "Faust" Eithun of the band Emperor murdered a homosexual man in the Olympic Park in Lillehammer. He was subsequently convicted of this crime and sentenced to 14 years in prison (of which he served nine before being released in 2003). On August 10, 1993,