Hugh Cook (science fiction author)

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For the Canadian novelist, see Hugh Cook (Canadian novelist).

Hugh Cook (b. 1956) is a cult author whose works blend fantasy and science fiction. He is best-known for his epic series The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness.

1 Biography
2 Bibliography
3 External links

[edit] Biography

Hugh Walter Gilbert Cook was born in Essex, England in 1956. After spending his early childhood in England he moved to Ocean Island (now Banaba Island in Kiribati). His experiences of English castles and of life on an equatorial island later influenced his writing[1].

He moved to, and was educated in New Zealand. His first novel, Plague Summer was published when he was 24 in 1980.

Between 1986 and 1992 he wrote the ten-novel series The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. Disappointing sales prevented the publication of further volumes (up to 60 were planned).

In 1997 he moved to Japan, and now lives in Yokohama with his wife and daughter and teaches English.

He now publishes mainly online, through his site, Zen Virus. His online works include poetry, short stories, "flash fiction", and several novels.

In 2005 he underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer in the form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He wrote a medical memoir, Cancer Patient, telling of this experience.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series

Main article: Chronicles of an Age of Darkness

The Wizards and the Warriors - (aka Wizard War[2]) 1986 (ISBN 0-552-12566-0)
The Wordsmiths and the Warguild - (aka The Questing Hero and The Heroes Return (2 volumes)[3]) 1987 (ISBN 0-552-13130-X)
The Women and the Warlords - (aka The Oracle[4]) 1987 (ISBN 0-552-13131-8)
The Walrus and the Warwolf - (the first half was published in the US as Lords of the Swords) 1988 (ISBN 0-552-13327-2)
The Wicked and the Witless - 1989 (ISBN 0-552-13439-2)
The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers - 1990 (ISBN 0-552-13536-4)
The Wazir and the Witch - 1990 (ISBN 0-552-13537-2)
The Werewolf and the Wormlord - 1991 (ISBN 0-552-13538-0)
The Worshippers and the Way - 1992 (ISBN 0-552-13848-7)
The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster - 1992 (ISBN 0-552-13849-5)

The series broadly tells the story of the events leading to the end of a dark age. The idea for the series began with an ambitious outline for a series of twenty novels. This would have been followed by two equally long series, The Chronicles of an Age of Wrath, and The Chronicles of an Age of Heroes. This sixty-volume scheme ended with the publication of the tenth volume because of disappointing sales. [5]

[edit] Other novels

Plague Summer
The Shift

This describes a postnuclear world where orange intelligent reptilian extraterrestrials known as the Spang have conquered the Earth through the use of a device called the Shift, which controls movement through space and time and can alter history. They are in league with Iridian Troy, the most powerful human on Earth, who has an overprotective attitude towards his daughter. He is opposed by his guilt-ridden over-intellectual employee Gabriel Arkhangel and his daughter's lover Clive Sendarka, whom he pursues using all the resources available to the human race. Humans are regularly exported to a slave colony known as Deep Six, which is far out in interstellar space.

Oceans of Light series
- West of Heaven
- East of Hell
- North of Paradise

A fantasy trilogy that Cook finished in the 1990s, set in Chalakanesia.

[edit] Short stories

Consenting Adults 1988
The Kidney Bean Diet 1998
Consequences 1998
Heroes of the Third Millennium Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1998, Vol. 95, Iss. 6, p. 99.
Outing 1998
Night on Bear Mountain 1999
An Alien in Japan 1999
Howie Glenst and the Woman Made From Glass 1999
The Succubus 1999
The Earth is Flat 1999
Her Mint-Green Breath 1999
Remembering Nagasaki 1999
Mountaineering Complex 1999
Machine Readable 1999
Golf Course 1999
Sweetness and Light 2000
Locked Out 2000
Night in the Month of Madness 2000
In the Month of Lombok 2000
Marooned on Footbone 2000
Lost in the Moid Challenging Destiny No. 10, July 2000 (St. Marys, Canada, ISSN 1206-6656) (pp 7-27).
Gally Smith and the Massacre of the Orcs 2000
Boxes 2000
Portrait of a Woman with her Hair on Fire 2000
The Invention of Stones 2000
Basque 2000
Other Lives 2000
Swiss Toys 2001
Limbo Larry 2001
Gap Music 2001
That Nightmare Known as Life 2001
Wet Leaves on the Track 2001
Hunting Andrew 2001
A Totally Ordinary Young Woman 2001
The Warden of Jestabel Zee 2001
Pogy Bobs and the Hyena of Death 2001
Golgo Molgo 2001
The Trial of Edgar Allan Poe 2002
Cultural Correctness 2002
Flowers for the Lady 2002
Views of Texas 2002
Bad Sex 2003
Patriots 2003
The Suicide Bomber 2003
Quilting 2003
UFO Invasion - the Truth about Alien Abductions!! 2003
Acorns 2003
The Transfer of Patient Twenty-Seven 2003
Live on Channel 10 2003
On the Wings of a Cockroach 2003
The Man on the Balcony 2003
Sign on the Dotted Line 2003
Life on Planet Earth 2003
Saint George and Ibrahim 2003
Cherry Normal 2003
The Rat 2003
Upgrade 2003
A Subway Ride 2003
The Wrath of Babril Hestek 2003
Too Far From Home 2003
The Angel of the Seventh Apocalypse 2003
The Triumph of Japanese English 2003
The Naked Succubus Sex Slave Murders 2003
Harriet's Armpit 2003
House Hunting 2003
The Orc's Armpit 2003
His Name Was Mac 2003
The Magniloquator 2003
Honeymoon 2004
You're in my Body 2004
The Executed Man 2004
The Wind in his Mouth 2004
Jorgelvace 2004
Fulfillable Wishes 2004
Yenlow's Renewal 52 2004
Grapefruit Perfume Bicycle Birthmark 2004
Escape from Hell 2004
Implantation 2004
Shotgun Al's Last Picnic 2004
Maggots 2004
The Therapy of the Great God Mulchagola 2004
Lost in his Bedroom 2004
Daddy's Little Girl 2004
A Better Life 2004
Suicide Hotel 2004
Newlyweds 2004
Burning Louty 2004
Hot Cardboard 2004
Santa Claus, Sex Criminal 2004
Eating Jesus Christ 2005