Cipher Mysteries

[Here are links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Enjoy!] * * * * * * * The crew were spending the rest of the day on those interminable fly-past shots of the Voynich Manuscript all modern documentary editors demand, their rostrum camera a microlight buzzing across a lightly-inked vellum landscape. But Marina ...

[Here are links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Enjoy!] * * * * * * * Absent-mindedly dusting breadcrumbs off a beard no longer there, Graydon Harvitz paused in thought at the glass doors of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Was the building a sublime symphony in concrete for keeping ...

Fate dealt Stanley Picker a strange card that day: he just happened to be ambling past the burning library on his way home from work as the rampaging mob surged out into the street pushing trolleys of rare books and manuscripts. Amidst all this mayhem, Stanley only had eyes for the odd little cipher manuscript balanced precariously on top of one ...

Just to let you know about a nice little cipher-mystery-themed short story just published on the Daily Science Fiction website: "The Voynich Variations" by Edoardo Albert neatly merges the Voynich Manuscript's inaccessibility with modern orchestral music's inaccessibility, with a magical flourish to tie it all up. Enjoy!

Such a stupid thing for a bright kid to do: pinballing through her mid-teen rebellion, Jena Kyng had wanted to demonstrate some kind of unbranded online tribal allegiance, and ended up with two lines of Voynichese across her lower back (from the end paragraph of page f67r2, as if anyone off-list really cared). Though in many ways, she'd had a lucky escape: imagine ending ...

[Here are links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Enjoy!] * * * * * * * Chapter 3 - "Unjust Desserts" "I suppose you just happened to pick this up at a rummage sale?", said Emm, minutely scrutinizing the jacket's material through her Swiss army knife's magnifying glass. "No, it was my grandfather's - Mani Harvitz, he ...

[Here are links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Enjoy!] * * * * * * * Chapter 2 - "Game On" Vivid dreams of a towering manuscript library on fire: the Renaissance inks and paints boil, become gas and swirl upwards into an angry elemental wind, textual spirits entombed for centuries but now set free to roam ...

"Can you stop being so goddamn Voynich?" Dan shouted down the phone at her continued silence. "I'm sick of reading between your lines, playing guess-what-Marie-means like our whole off-line life is some afternoon quiz show. Since our shared New Haven hajj, you've been no fun - zero fun - and all I'm getting from you are stupid little clues that even the Cipher Mysteries guy wouldn't ...

There are colours in my eyes, history flickering and sputtering as a beautiful infinity reaches out to hold my bloodsoaked hand... * * * * * * The Brazilian girl's plan is stone-cold in its vision, fractal in its detail, awesome in its thinking. Yes, the organizers have put the necessary overnight protection squad in place: but the two guards merely ...

So there I was in my first awesome week working at the B: my room mate Lynina kept saying that I was so 'Legally Blonde', and I was like "but do I have a dog? No? Well, I don't think so". And then she just kept on about the East Coast / West Coast thing, and I'm like "so now ...