Soduko Novels

Stephen Graham Jones, author of the ambitious Demon Theory, Bleed into Me, and others posted an entertaining open letter on his website pitching the idea of a Soduko novel.

So, my pitch: instead of attempting to clone Da Vinci Code’s formula for success, its unprecedented domination of the marketplace, of the readership, I propose instead to one-up it. Instead of having an art-historian or symbologist adventure through a tangled plot of exotic locations and daisy-chain reasoning emblematic of the crossword, My Soduko Novel (working title) aims to have a slightly Aspergic elementary school teacher become embroiled in an escalating series of events which she barely scrapes through each time, by dint of her inborn and almost ‘mystical’ abilities with numbers. International intrigue? Sure. Sex and blood? So long as it’s PG-13, definitely. However, before you ask, no, I’m not suggesting we essentially lock Mrs. Lockheed (tentative name) in a Dungeon & Dragons-esque ‘campaign,’ such that she’s merely stumbling into room after room, each with a soduko-inspired keypad she has to solve in order to open the door. That would be keeping the soduko dramatic, instead of letting it, as Dan Brown masterfully did with the crossword logic, become thematic.