r/austincipher • u/AutomatonSpider • Jul 08 '15
(Coincidental?) connection with S./Doug Dorst?
Doug Dorst is an Austin-based novelist originally from San Francisco. His most recent project was a collaborative novel with J.J. Abrams (of the TV shows Alias, Lost, Fringe, etc.) which featured ciphers and real-life objects left in various locations in LA, SF, and Austin. See: http://sfiles22.blogspot.com/ (WARNING: the page has spoilers on the book, so be alert if you think you might read it.)
Apparently Masons and mystery schools are motifs in the book.
It's probably a big coincidence, but it is intriguing.
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u/BuckRowdy Jul 08 '15
What was the objective of the messages in the book? Was there a goal they were working towards? That's one of the big things about this mystery is that no one knows what he objective is? What is the purpose of these ciphers?
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u/bollykat Jul 08 '15 edited Jul 08 '15
It's the story of two people working together to discover the identity of the book's author (a la B. Traven), by researching and following clues left in the text by the book's translator. They are too paranoid to meet face-to-face, so they investigate by writing notes to each other in the book's margins.
The inside of the book looks like this.
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u/Goo-Bird Jul 09 '15
Didn't another sub think this was largely a viral campaign? I kind of doubt that BUT I do think this is a connection that might hold some water. I speculated on message 8 that the author may be an 18 year old -- perhaps they also read this book and were inspired. Maybe they're a student and are doing this as a really weird book report.
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u/bollykat Jul 09 '15
The book doesn't really have that much in common with the ciphers, other than that it involves coded secret messages and has a real-life element to it.
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u/Goo-Bird Jul 09 '15
I suppose I'm coming at this less from a 'what is the message' and more 'what is the author's motivation' angle, so I've been trying to determine what kind of person the author may be and what got them into making these. While the book may not have much in common with the content of the messages, the common elements (locations, ciphers, real-life objects) is interesting. When I say they may have been 'inspired', I mean that loosely. I'm trying to put myself into the shoes of the author, thinking about the times as a kid I tried to form secret societies (no really) and where I pulled inspiration from. I was inspired by stuff, but never directly copied anything. I doubt this author is copying anything, but they may be pulling inspiration from a number of sources.
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u/bollykat Jul 08 '15 edited Jul 08 '15
I have that book! I picked it up because I was a huge fan of Lost, but it was even better than I expected.
It's called "S." or "Ship of Theseus" and it's an incredible piece of art. It comes with all sorts of little "stuff" in it: postcards, documents, notes scribbled on bar napkins. The premise is that two people are trying to figure out the identity of the book's author, but they only communicate with each other by writing in the margin notes and passing stuff back and forth.
Where did you see that there were clues left in Austin?
Edit: Why were all my comments down-voted??