The Big Fat List (of Voynich novels)...

I've been meaning to put this Big Fat List of English-language Voynich-related novels together for a while: I've appended links to the most significant review / blog mentions I've made about them. I'll update this every once in a while, so please feel free to drop me a line if you have or know of a Voynich-themed book you think should be mentioned or reviewed.

English-language Voynich novels in print:

"Return of the Lloigor" by Colin Wilson in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1969) [mentioned here]
The Face in the Frost John Anthony Bellairs (1969) [mentioned here]
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone Max McCoy (1994) [mentioned here]
The Grinning Ghost Brad Strickland (1999) [mentioned here]
Enoch's Portal A.W.Hill (2001) [my review]
Popco Scarlett Thomas (2004) [my review]
The Magician's Death Paul C. Doherty (2004) [mentioned here]
Shattered Icon (2004) / Splintered Icon (2006) Bill Napier [mentioned here]
Codex Lev Grossman (2005) [mentioned here]
Vellum Matt Rubinstein (2007) [my review]

Forthcoming Voynich novels:

"The Castle of the Stars" Enrique Joven [mentioned here and here]
"The Source" Michael Cordy [mentioned here]
"In Tongues of the Dead" Brad Kelln [mentioned here]

Voynich novels in development (working titles where known):

Richard D. Weber [mentioned here and here]
Bill Walsh [mentioned here]
William Michael Campbell ("The Voynich Solution") [mentioned here and here]
Andrea Peters ("I'm Sorry... Love Anne") [mentioned here]

Michael Cordy's "The Source"...

A quick update on Michael Cordy's forthcoming Voynich-themed oeuvre: it has now been retitled "The Source" (let's just pray it's not re-released later on as "The Source Code", that would be awful), is due for hardback and softback release in August 2008, and can already (inevitably) be pre-ordered from Amazon.

I also dug up a (possibly deleted?) snippet from Google's cache of the My Irrationalities blog. This mentioned translations for France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Israel, and Poland: and Warner Bros optioning the film rights, with Akiva Goldman's Weed Road to produce. It sounds like it's all getting up a head of steam, let's hope the book delivers the goods.

You know, I'd really like to write The Source screenplay: that would be a lot of fun. Any offers, Mr Goldman? ;-)

"The Messiah Code"...

I'll admit it: I spend so much time (and money) servicing my 100-a-year non-fiction book habit, it's been a while since I've strayed into the world of fiction. I did read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" and "Digital Fortress" (yuk), just in case there was anything I should flag in my book (I mentioned his "O Draconian Devil!" and "Oh, lame saint" anagrams in chapter 6). Actually, the last novel I read was Susanna Clarke's epic "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell".

But with the 2008 Voynichian novel tsunami fast approaching us all, I thought I'd warm up for Michael Cordy's forthcoming VMs book by reading his first book, "The Messiah Code" (1997): this follows the generic blockbuster template, mixing together fat themes (religion, gene therapy, gene paranoia) with thin characters.

Unfortunately... though the writing is pacy and spare throughout, Cordy's plotting inexperience shows through everywhere. The book ends up like an argument between two kids playing cliche Top Trumps - who would win, the genius Nobel laureate geneticist fighting for his child's life, or the ruthless, conflicted, 2000-year old super-rich Templaresque secret society? The perky female black genius Nobel laureate computer scientist from the 'hood, or the shape- and gender-shifting unfeeling uber-killer with a surprising childhood secret? You feel like asking: yeah, and would Mechagodzilla kick the Transformers' hollow butts?

In the end, for all its page-turning readability "The Messiah Code" is a book about ciphers, for that is what all its characters are - nulls, blanks, voids, zeroes. But maybe that's the whole point: perhaps all that blockbuster readers want is a satisfying mental knot to untangle on the beach, and aren't really interested in much beyond that.

At least Michael Cordy did his research properly, so the "science bit" largely holds up: and for that I was grateful (though a "terrabyte" did sneak in somewhere, *sigh*). But I hope he's come a long way in the ten years since...

Too many Voynich novels!

The proliferation of Voynich Manuscript-themed novels has gone way beyond being merely a vague pattern in my peripheral vision: it's starting to become a bit of a plague.

Here's another book, this time from Bilbao-based first-time novelist Iñaki Uriarte: published by Verbigracia in 2007, it's called "La Piedra Filosofal" (The Philosopher's Stone, if you hadn't guessed), and weaves the Voynich Manuscript in with the Philosopher's Stone and quantum physics. It is 394 pages long, has the plant from f2v and the top-left nymph from f82v on the cover, and there's a sizeable (83-page!) extract here to whet your appetite. I can't see an ISBN for it, and none of the book sites I looked at had a copy (even Amazon!), but if you fancy it you can buy it for 18 euros directly from the publisher via PayPal. Which is nice.

And there is yet another Spanish book (mentioned in passing by Enrique Joven) called "El quinto mandamiento" (The Fifth Commandment, which is "thou shalt not kill" [of course]), by Eric Frattini, published by Espasa-Calpe, ISBN13 978-84-670-2442-5. It seems fairly standard mystery thriller fare, with an elderly professor uncovering the secrets of the VMs, while a conspiratorial circle of eight (led by a corrupt cardinal) tracks down and murders everyone who the professor has talked to. There's a bit of f67r1 Photoshopped onto the cover, along with the Florence Duomo, but unless I'm really badly mistaken it only seems to engage with the VMs in a very superficial way. 360 pages, 19.90 euros. You can read a machine translation of the first chapter here (click on the 2 3 4 5 .. numbers at the bottom). But Lord, spare me from having to read about any more evil Jesuit priests!

So... we have:-

• Enrique Joven's forthcoming "Castle of the Stars"
• Iñaki Uriarte's "La Piedra Filosofal"
• Eric Frattini's "El quinto mandamiento"
• Thierry Maugenest's "Manuscript MS408"
• Michael Cordy's forthcoming "Garden of God"
• Richard D. Weber's "The Voynich Covenant"
• Andrea Peters' "I'm Sorry... Love Anne"
• William Michael Campbell's "The Voynich Solution"

...and even as I type there are doubtless 10-20 more writers out there feverishly word-pureeing their Dan Brown-esque Voynich-based mystery capers, with nearly all of them struggling to find exciting new synonyms for the word "evil" to put before the word "Jesuit". :-o

In some ways, this is all very flattering, for it surely means that our overall Voynichological "research programme" (for want of a better phrase) over the last few years has blossomed in a broad cultural awareness of the manuscript, an inky sea of ideas into which novelists feel free to dip their fountain pens. However, I think it's also fair to say that most of these books do not engage with the VMs in a very substantial way, which - given all the work that we've done - is a bit sad. So on balance, I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad, which of the two emotions is the stronger... you'll have to make your own judgment on that, I'm afraid!

2008: Year of the Voynich!

Two interesting Voynich news stories...

Firstly, I've had a blog comment and some emails from a pleasantly surprised Enrique Joven, author of "El castello de las estrellas" (his blog is here): his big news is the book has been picked up by HarperCollins US, and is due for publication in September 2008 under the title "The castle of the stars". According to one Internet site, Enrique received a low six-figure advance ("$100,000 to $300,000). I'm very much looking forward to it! :-)

Secondly, another Voynich novel is on its way... and it could well be a big one.Its author is Michael Cordy, writer of the international bestsellers "The Messiah Code", "The Lucifer Code", "Crime Zero", and "The Venus Conspiracy". His next book (ISBN10 055215699X, ISBN13 9780552156998, AKA "Untitled Michael Cordy") is due for hardback release in "January 2008" from Transworld Publishers. The original title was "The Garden Of God", meaning Eden, though (curiously enough) it is also what "Baghdad" originally meant. What are the odds Transworld end up giving it the title "The Eden Code" instead?

The synopsis of the Michael Cordy book is here: basically, the main character's beautiful wife Lauren decodes the Voynich Manuscript, but ends up in a coma after someone tries to steal her translation, and so the main character ends up racing against a fanatical priest to reach the mythical "Jardin del Dios"...

I'm already getting a bit sick of these Jesuits and mysterious meddling priests (particularly as the Jesuit order didn't start up until many decades after the VMs was probably written), but hey - novelists have to start somewhere, right? [Also: I couldn't help but be reminded not a little of Thierry Maugenest's 2005 novel "Manuscrit MS 408", where two academics decoding the Voynich mysteriously fall into a coma, setting the story in motion...]

Whatever you think of Voynich novels, these are two potentially big novels with our favourite manuscript in a starring role, both due for release by Serie A mega-publishers this year. Perhaps I'm misreading the tea-leaves, but I do get the overwhelming feeling from this that 2008 is somehow destined to be the "Year of the Voynich" - not necessarily the year when it gets solved, but the year when it goes fully mainstream.