Big Fat List of Voynich Novels

Here’s the current Big Fat List of Voynich-related novels: I’ve appended links to the most significant review / blog mentions I’ve made about them. If there’s anything missing, please drop me a line & I’ll try to update the list as appropriate. I’m gradually working my way through them all, but it’ll take a fair while to read the lot…

Voynich novels in print (in English):

(1969) Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Colin Wilson [mentioned here]
(1969) The Philosopher’s Stone Colin Wilson [my review]
(1969) The Face in the Frost John Anthony Bellairs [mentioned here]
(1994) Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone Max McCoy [my review]
(1999) The Grinning Ghost Brad Strickland [mentioned here]
(2000) Deliver Us From Evil Tom Holland [mentioned here]
(2001) Enoch’s Portal A.W.Hill [my review]
(2004) Popco Scarlett Thomas [my review]
(2004) The Magician’s Death Paul C. Doherty [mentioned here]
(2005) Codex Lev Grossman [my review]
(2005) Olympos Dan Simmons [mentioned here]
(2007) Vellum Matt Rubinstein [my review]
(2008) The Source Michael Cordy [my review]
(2008) The Charlemagne Pursuit Steve Berry [my review]
(2008) The Voynich Project: Nephilim Rising James K. Rollins [my review]
(2008) In Tongues of the Dead Brad Kelln [my review]
(2008) The Voynich Enigma Baz Cunningham [my review]
(2009) The Book of God and Physics: A Novel of the Voynich Mystery Enrique Joven [my review]
(2009) Mappamundi Christopher Harris [my review]
(2010) The Radix Brett King [my review]
(2010) “That’s Life, Samara Brooks” Daniel Ehrenhaft
(2011) “The Cadence of Gypsies” Barbara Casey [mentioned here]
(2011) “In a Celandine World” – Catherine Thorpe
(2012) “The Book of Blood & Shadow” – Robin Wasserman
(2012) “Vaults of Power” – Diane Echer
(2012) “The Voynich Cypher” – Russell Blake

Voynich novels in development (working titles where known):

Bill Walsh [mentioned here]
William Michael Campbell (”The Voynich Solution”) [mentioned here and here]
Andrea Peters (”I’m Sorry… Love Anne”) [mentioned here]

Voynich experimental fiction:

(2006) Voynich, a cyber-noir screenplay (parts 1, 2 , and 3) Matthew Thomas Farrell [briefly reviewed here]
(200x) The Voynich Enslavement Hank Snow [reviewed here]

Voynich short stories:

(2009) The Voynich Fugue Nick Pelling
(2009) Generic Historical Cipher Mystery (short version) Nick Pelling
(2009) The Voynich Christ Nick Pelling
(2009) u r so qokedy daiin, m8, lol Nick Pelling
(2009) The Fake Factory Nick Pelling
(2009-2011) The Voynich Translation (Chapter 1) (Chapter 2) (Chapter 3) (Chapter 4) (Chapter 5) Nick Pelling
(2010) The Final Blow Nick Pelling
(2010) “The Voynich Code” movie Nick Pelling
(2010) Square #1 & Wife #8 Nick Pelling
(2010) Go Oilers Nick Pelling
(2010) A Beautiful Infinity Nick Pelling
(2010) So Goddamn Voynich Nick Pelling
(2010) The Voynich Tattoo Nick Pelling
(2011) The Voynich Variations Edoardo Albert
(2011) FS: cursed cipher manuscript, slightly singed… Nick Pelling

Non-English-language Voynich novels:

(2001) Datura tai harha jonka jokainen näkee Leena Krohn (published in German as “Stechapfel”) [mentioned here]
(200x) L’intrigue de Il Romanzo Di Nostradamus Valerio Evangelisti [mentioned here]
(2005) Das Voynich-Rätsel : Thriller Florian F. Marzin
(2007) LA PIEDRA FILOSOFAL Iñaki Uriarte [mentioned here]
(2007) Manuscrit MS 408 Thierry Maugenest
(2007) El Quinto Mandamiento Eric Frattini [mentioned here]
(2007) L’UOMO NELLA LUCE Walter Martinelli [mentioned here]
(2008) El castillo de las estrellas Enrique Joven [mentioned here]
(2008) El libro maldito de los templarios Francisco Díaz Valladares [mentioned here]
(2008) Das Voynich Manuskript. Mystikthriller [Ungekürzte Ausgabe] (Broschiert) Panagiotis Konidaris ; übers. von Maria Sabbas-Scouras
(2012) I Custodi Della Pergamena Proibita (The Keeper of the Forbidden Parchment) – Aldo Gritti
(2012) Voynich: Il Segreto Del Barabba (il più grande segreto su Gesù) – Barbara Cesa

15 thoughts on “Big Fat List of Voynich Novels

  1. ernesto on November 26, 2012 at 1:57 am said:

    thank you for this list. Having gone through all of your reviews, I’m unsure whether there is a VM novel you would recommend, not only in terms of faith to the history of the manuscript, but in terms of literary quality. If I were to read one book on the list, which would you recommend?
    thanks, e

  2. Ernesto: the Indiana Jones novel is the one to go for!

  3. ernesto on November 27, 2012 at 2:28 am said:

    Thank you, Nick. cheers, e

  4. Hi all,

    My book is getting lots of traction yet still I have not recieved royalties so I up it it $3.00! The Code Unchopped shows you where the book was authored, how to decode the voynich, Rosetta Wheel words, Folio 67r full astrology, Several decoded paragraphs and a actual historical location of the Castle from the cover on the book.

    If only Nick, William Friedman and an Elite decoding team and I could get together funded by Yale or some Rich dude we could get the whole Voynich decoded by I estimate in 2014. Wishing you all well here!

  5. Joao on July 30, 2013 at 9:28 am said:

    @Thomas: Mr Thomas, I went to Amazon to see about your book, but the reviews of those who have read your book are utterly bad. It dismissed me completely.

  6. "real hesitance" on March 17, 2014 at 2:13 am said:

    Thomas E. O’Neil , your book seems out ofprint…any way i could buy elsewhere then amazon?

  7. "real hesitance" on March 17, 2014 at 2:16 am said:

    After devouring Nick’ s book, i need a voynich fix…any recommandations on actual historical, well researched books like your’ s Nick?

  8. “real hesitance”: “An Elegant Enigma” has lots of good stuff (and is now downloadable for free), while Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill’s book is basically OK, if a bit journalistic overall. If you want something hefty to read around the subject of historical cryptography, David Kahn’s The Codebreakers remains #1. Apart from that… there’s not a lot in English.

  9. Jennifer Haley on March 31, 2016 at 3:59 am said:

    Deborah Harkness: The Book of Life, novel features the Voynich

  10. Jennifer: I read all three books of the trilogy ages ago. Book 1 was a nice “posh vampire romp” read for most of the way through… but then you can almost hear the editorial meeting where her publisher says “Look, Deborah, stretch this out for three books and make us all some serious money, OK?”, so she backs the story away from the big showdown etc and the pace drops to a crawl. Book 2 was a big quality drop down from Book 1 (sorry Deborah, but it’s true), while Book 3 was basically OK.

  11. In French, Manuscrit ms 408 by Thierry Maugenest is good.
    He takes quite a different approach from the other novels that I know about.
    Here Roger Bacon wrote the VMs, and presented a philosophy that is so far advanced beyond what the human race can currently handle that anyone who reads it is in for a grievous fate.
    The real vms-list shows up in the story. He describes several examples of the VMs cipher system, although most of them don’t make real sense, the only exception being an equivalent to Currier. The VMs’ opening words mean, “Qui hunc librum lecturus est… [Latin, in English: S/he who is about to read this book…]”.
    in his publicity he mentions several real students of the VMs in his publicity, including me, although unfortunately I don’t recall whether he mentions you.

  12. GIUSEPPE BIANCHI on November 8, 2018 at 7:42 am said:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o08mjo4xwPs&t=13s
    voynich encoding system without microscope

  13. Chelsea Vaughn on July 26, 2021 at 7:04 pm said:

    Have you read The Bloodletter’s Daughter by Linda Lafferty? Obviously a work of (fantastic) fiction, but her descriptions of the MS sparked an intense need to learn about it. I’ve been down the rabbit hole ever since!

  14. Chelsea Vaughn: I bought the book when it first came out (I’ve reviewed numerous books on this website), but found it unexpectedly hard to read, and never managed to get even halfway through it. Having said that, it’s true that not every book is for every reader, so I didn’t feel it fair to review it when I hadn’t even finished it.

  15. Ffebi Morgan on August 22, 2022 at 9:51 am said:

    A short story in Welsh by Mihangel Morgan is based on the Voynich Manuscript. ‘Y Seiffr’, Kate Roberts a’r Ystlum a Dirgelion Eraill, Y Lolfa, Tal-y-bont, 2012.

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