Hugh Cook's epic CHRONICLES OF AN AGE OF DARKNESS series returns to print

In unexpectedly splendid news, Hugh Cook's idiosyncratic, funny and genuinely inventive Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series, all ten volumes, has been brought back into print. Fans at the r/hughcook subreddit acquired the rights to the series, formed Zenphos Press and have brought the series back as both ebook and print editions.

Hugh Cook was born in 1956 in Billericay, England, but grew up after the age of six in Kiribati. He then moved to New Zealand, where he served in the military. He began writing fiction in the 1970s, publishing his first novel, Plague Summer in 1980. In 1986 he began the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness fantasy series, planned to run to twenty volumes, with two series of equal size, Chronicles of an Age of Wrath and Chronicles of an Age of Heroes, to follow. The series was cancelled after just ten volumes due to disappointing sales.

In 1997 he moved to Yokohama, Japan, and worked on additional books, short stories and poetry. He published the Oceans of Light fantasy trilogy and the standalones To Find and Wake the Dreameri and Bamboo Horses. After suffering a bout of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, he wrote a candid memoir about the experience, Cancer Patient (2005). Unfortunately, the disease returned and he passed away in 2008.

Discussion of his fantasy masterwork was kept alive by both ardent fans and also a new generation of fantasy writes who cited Cook as an inspiration. China Mieville, leading doyen of the New Weird fantasy movement, wrote an introduction for a reprint of the fourth volume in the series, The Walrus and the Warwolf (which Scott Lynch once cited as the greatest title for a fantasy novel of all time). Adrian Tchaikovsky has also revealed himself to be a major fan, penning introductions for two of the books in this reprint run.

A decade ago, I summed up the series in its entry in my History of Fantasy project thusly:

Few could accuse New Zealand novelist Hugh Cook of lacking vision. In 1986 he published The Wizards and the Warriors, the first novel in a series he called Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. Cook's plan was for this series to run to twenty volumes, to be followed by two series of equal length, Chronicles of an Age of Wrath and Chronicles of an Age of Heroes. The sixty-book plan was overly ambitious despite Cook's high speed of output, but ultimately he only finished the first half of the first series (ten novels in six years) before it was halted due to lack of sales.

Unusually, the series was not one massive epic story. Instead, it was more episodic with some novels taking place simultaneously alongside others, with events varying depending on who was witnessing or instigating them. The books used unreliable narrators and a prose style that could vary significantly from volume to volume. The books also eschewed a lot of epic fantasy tropes, with the books not following a set chronology and not having a central hero or villain. The books featured whimsical humour and influences from sword and sorcery as well as planetary romance. Some books were reminiscent of the later New Weird movement (Adrian Tchaikovsky, China Mieville and Scott Lynch are big fans). Some books were more like roleplaying games, with Paizo Publishing reprinting one of the volumes, The Walrus and the Warwolf, as part of its Planet Stories line.

After the series concluded (prematurely) Cook published several more books before sadly passing away in 2008 from cancer. His massive mega-series was never finished, but its breadth, vision and general batshit insanity remain intriguing (and echoes, intended or not, of the tonal variations, dark humour and continent-skipping structure can be found in Steven Erikson's Malazan novels).

All ten books in the series are now back in print and available from the local Amazon of your choice and nationality:

1. The Wizards and the Warriors (1986)
2. The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987)
3. The Women and the Warlords (1987)
4. The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988)
5. The Wicked and the Witless (1989)
6. The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990)
7. The Wazir and the Witch (1990)
8. The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991)
9. The Worshippers and the Way (1992)
10. The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992)

Splendid news indeed.

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