As those of you who’ve read An Instruction in Shadow will know, towards the end of the book Stephen gets hold of a mysterious coded letter. I didn’t include the decoded version since it wasn’t necessary for the story (chronologically, the reader is going to find out the important bits of the letter immediately at the start of book #3). I did think some readers would find it an interesting puzzle, though, so I left the coded version of the letter in the book to see how long it would take people to figure out.
It took them about 24 hours. Never underestimate the collective time and energy of Internet fans.
But not everyone was able to track down that decoded version, so for those people, as well as for those who’d be interested in how Stephen ended up decoding the letter, here’s a decoded version, with Stephen’s comments/annotations.
NB: this little extract assumes you’ve read An Instruction in Shadow and will make absolutely no sense otherwise, so be warned. It’s also not particularly reader-friendly since it’s a direct transcription of Stephen’s notes; since it’s written for his eyes, he doesn’t go out of his way to explain anything. This extract is also included in Book #3, so readers who don’t follow this blog won’t be missing anything.
Chapter 1 will be following next month.
Helpful annotations. I was wondering how he knew where to email based on the message. Thanks!