The Dodgson Chronicles

As you may know, Charles Dodgson wrote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass under the pen name Lewis Carroll. However, in academic circles Charles Dodgson is actually better known as a mathematician who dabbled with what today would be called cryptography. In the 1800’s he invented a game based on single letter substitution in a word (See Word Ladder on the Internet). This book was actually produced using an extension of his work, single word substitution in a sentence. Post- processing for both readability and conformance to modern literary standards yielded a totally unexpected action adventure with aliens, government conspiracies, fire-fights and explosions.

The translation, the story itself, is a sci-fi action adventure centered on Alice Carroll’s search for her brother whom she believes is lost in another dimension. The first book, the decoding of Alice in Wonderland, opens with Alice and her sister, Lisa Carroll, sitting on a park bench in modern day New York City. Alice has a gun under her coat. A shadowy specter, about Alice’s size, runs by their bench. Alice deserts her sister and gives chase, following the creature into another dimension.

Wonderland, as the CIA calls it, is a dangerous place. The Grandice, as the creatures call themselves, are insatiably hungry carnivores. After lobsters, humans are their favorite delicacy, but anything at all edible will do. Cannibalism is not uncommon. Food is always on their minds and they have the fangs and claws to get it. The Carrolls sarcastically call them “Rabbits” after their famous relative’s stories.

In the translation of Through the looking Glass, Alice learns that the Rabbit’s world is an artificial construct. It is cleverly designed to support their “mining operations,” the theft of refined metallic elements. They’re sort of scrap metal thieves bent (so to speak) on controlling the Universe through a diabolical plan based on a mixture of religion and quantum mechanics. Alice also learns Wonderland is largely composed of formal gardens that depict the geography of the Earth. The gardens contain a series of dimensional wormholes that enable large scale interaction with Earth.

Having raped many worlds, the Rabbits are well into mining the Earth. However, things are different with this operation. Earth vices are seeping in: gambling, internal prejudices, beer-binging, and drugs are undermining their efforts. The Grandice have another problem: an increasing number of angry individuals from different species who were inadvertently sucked up in the course of metal scavenging. Given the Rabbit’s previous successes, they openly tolerate these strangers in their dimension; believing they simply can’t affect their grand plan. Unfortunately for the Rabbits, these various groups have recently united under an umbrella resistance organization. The resistance is on the verge of mounting a full scale guerrilla war. Can Alice find her brother in this turmoil? Can she prevent the world from reverting to the Stone Age? Better yet, can she get out alive? Charles Dodgson saw it all.