help me find this 90s science fantasy series

Cafe Society
1

Ok bare with me on this one since I don’t remember all the details. It was a series with a least five books, each book was told from the point of view of a different character with overlapping stories. Started out as a fairly generic low magic fantasy world then some high tech was introduced from nowhere in the third book or so. First book possibly involved a shipwrecked magicians apprentice character from what I remember. It wasn’t high fantasy, it was very pulpy and didn’t take itself too seriously. Fair bit of sex thrown in. The books all had a bit of a picaresque feel in that they were mostly a series of misadventures of characters caught up in events beyond their control. Second or third book focused on a very arabic influenced culture, caliphs and viziers etc

I don’t think it was a popular series so it might be out of print, but I’m 90 percent sure I didn’t just imagine it. Have looked through various lists of fantasy / science fantasy series and can’t find it.

Anyone have a clue?

2

a few more bits of information. The protagonists were all pretty much anti-heroes or morally ambiguous and each book was told only from one characters POV.

3

Sounds like you’ve mixed up a couple of the Tracy Hickman/Margeret Weiss series into one series, thre. The shipwrecked apprentice and Arabic culture bits definitely sound like The Rose Of The Prophetseries, but that’s just 3 books. The bit about low magic and then high tech could be either the Darksword ‘trilogy’ or the Death Gate Cycle(a heptalogy)

4

Found it after looking through many lists of picaresque fantasy series. It was the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series by Hugh Cook.

Now to try and track them down, yes all out of print.

5

That was what I thought originally, too, except he mentioned lots of sex, something largely absent from W&H.

6

I really liked the series at first, with all its titles having Ws in them, with a sense of humour that reminded me of Jack Vance. But then it got a bit heavy and convoluted and I lost interest. And so did he, by the looks of things.

7

He finished 10 books which is pretty good going, and he died at a fairly young age of cancer. Anyway I’m going to try and track them down. Theres no ebooks available so second hand from Amazon it is.

8

True, missed that bit.

9

You should be able to get a copy of The Walrus and the Warwolf; Paizo Publishing reissued it a few years ago.

http://paizo.com/products/btpy88wa?The-Walrus-the-Warwolf

10

Yep thanks also frustratingly they don’t seem to sell an ebook version either. Its not that obscure, apparently the first few books in the series sold 450,000 copies , AFAIK thats a lot for fantasy.

11

[Beavis voice] Huh huh huh. Hugh. Cook. Huh huh.[/Beavis voice]