Back in the 1650s, we missed our chance at a world fit for ordinary people. What would have life been like if we hadn't missed that chance? How different would our world have been? - its science, its society, its morals, its choices?
Science-fiction? Steampunk? Alternative-history? Social satire? The Viner Codex is all of those, and more: a series of stories about a different world - and how we could perhaps make it our own...
"No rich, no poor, just each of us as equals, sharing our Commonwealth as best we can"
"The plant-world supports us in ways that animals and machines never could"
"There is never an excuse for murder... war itself is a crime"
This folder contains various items about vinery and the Commonwealth, as retrieved by Alan during his quest to make sense of the contents in the now-vanished farmhouse (see The Viner Dimension).
A successful French farmer travels to the Commonwealth to find out about farming practice - and sees the products of vinery for the first time. His diary records his experiences, until a sudden cut-off - after which a formal investigation then pieces together what happened next.
View BookA simple-seeming bequest sends Alan on an exploration that turns steadily stranger at every turn: "Weird politics. Weird plant-things. Weird battles where nobody dies."
View BookAn engineer faces many challenges as he tries to bring the Commonwealth's strange plant-technology of vinery into the corrupt world of 1880s America.
View BookThe Viner Codex is a collaborative effort, engaging an increasing number of people and expanding steadily across many different media.
The current lead and 'show-runner' for the project is Tom Graves - a much-published author with more than 40 years' experience as a professional researcher, writer and blogger. (He does look a bit older these days than in the photograph shown here...)