Hugh Walter Gilbert Cook (9 August 1956–8 November 2008) was a cult author, whose works blend fantasy and science fiction. He is best known for his series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness.

Biography

Cook was born in Billericay in Essex, England in 1956. After spending his early childhood in England, in 1962 he moved to Ocean Island (now known as Banaba) in Kiribati. His experiences of English castles and of life on an equatorial island influenced his writing. In 1964, he moved to New Zealand, where he was educated. He later joined the New Zealand Army as a medic, where he served for ten years, reaching the rank of sergeant. Cook's first novel, Plague Summer, was published in 1980, when he was 24. It concerned drug running in New Zealand during an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. He left the army to write, and published The Shift in 1986. That comic science fiction novel involved an alien invasion and a machine that altered human history. Under the title After Advent, it was a finalist in the 1985 Young Writers' Competition run by The Times and Jonathan Cape. Between 1986 and 1992, Cook wrote the ten-novel series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. Disappointing sales prevented the publication of further volumes (up to 60 were planned) and Cook stopped publishing for some time. In 1997, he moved to Japan, and lived in Yokohama with his wife and daughter, where he taught English. Between 1998 and 2005, he published mainly through his website, Zen Virus. His online works encompassed poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and several novels, including To Find and Wake the Dreamer and Oceans of Light, a trilogy. In 2005, he underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He wrote a medical memoir, Cancer Patient, recounting that experience. Following a relapse, he died on 8 November 2008, in a hospice in Auckland.

Chronicles of an Age of Darkness

The series broadly tells the story of the events leading to the end of a dark age in a fantasy world. The idea for the series began with an 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.

Other novels

Short stories

Chronicles of an Age of Darkness stories

Oolong Morblock stories

Chalakanesia stories