Chronicles of an Age of Darkness is a ten-volume series of cross-genre fantasy and science fiction novels created by New Zealand cult author Hugh Cook.
The novels include elements of science fiction, comedy, graphic violence, grotesque and macabre happenings, and political cynicism.
It is told chiefly from the view of the Rovac warriors Elkor Alish and Morgan Hearst, and the wizards Phyphor, Miphon, and Garash.
Not really understanding why I was being asked to write this additional book, I nevertheless sat down and wrote it, and had fun doing so ... the result was The Wordsmiths and the Warguild which is the story of Togura Poulaan, a rather hapless young man who endures all manner of adventures but achieves nothing.
As The Wordsmiths and the Warguild was not a long book to start with, I was a bit dismayed to have it cut into two parts for American publication.The Women and the Warlords tells the story of Yen Olass, a female oracle from the Collosnon Empire.
Being a female in a male dominated society (the Collosnon Empire and its people, the Yarglat, being loosely based on the Mongols) she suffers some very unpleasant experiences.
The novel relates Drake's exile from homeland (which has fallen into the hands of adherents of his ex-master's religion), and his long quest to win Zanya.
It is the story of Sean Sarazin, aka Watashi, who is the oldest son of the ruler of Argan's most powerful state, the Harvest Plains.
The novel relates a power struggle to succeed the Wormlord, ruler of Wen Endex, between his daughter Ursula and his grandson Alfric, the protagonist.
The novel deals with one trainee, Asodo Hatch, and the conflict between his loyalty to his family and people in the real world, and his involvement in what he knows to be the futile concerns of the combat school.
Guest's story encompasses the entire chronology of the Chronicles, beginning before the earliest previously related events, and ending with the close of the "Age of Darkness".
Guest is a typically complex Cook character, a questing hero who begins as a thoughtless, overconfident boy of 14 and, by the time he finally fulfills his ambitions, finishes as a more self-reflective, semi-traumatized conqueror.
Only occasionally do the plots of the novels interact directly, and when characters cross paths, they perceive events in markedly different fashions.
Watashi's private torture chamber was a soundproof room containing a narrow wooden bench, which bore an ominous number of russet stains, and many ugly implements of iron.
Many ugly implements of iron had been gathered together; a torture bench had been installed; and Jarl had slaughtered a chicken in the room to make sure it was suitably blood-bespattered.The underlying cosmology of the series is outlined in The Wizards and the Warriors (pgs 110 - 111).
However, The Horn was killed by another god, Ameeshoth, who proceeded to remake the universe as Lemarl, imprisoning the rocks (still sentient) in their current existence.
A devastating series of wars resulted (still known as The Days of Wrath), which caused untold environmental damage to the world, and reduced the population to feudal levels of technology (although some advanced machines still exist).
[11] China Miéville wrote an introductory essay for the Paizo reissue calling it a fan favorite and an anti-Bildungsroman, noting that Cook's pirates avoided both romanticism and didacticism.