Bookshot #61: The Mongoliad, Book One

This was my beach book for our vacation to Florida and it was the perfect companion. (Last year's companion was Ken Macleod's The Cassini Division--  also eminently worthy.)

Set in the year 1241, with Europe still reeling from the onslaught of the Mongol invasions, The Mongoliad tells the story of a group of warrior monks, The Shield Brethren who, along with their guide, a young woman named Cnan, hatch a daring plan to save Europe from the armies poised to spread terror and destruction into Central and Western Europe. 

When Khan Onghwe summons the champions of Christendom to a trial of arms to decide the fate of Europe, many respond and flock to the ruins of Eastern Europe where the Mongol Horde waits to try their luck and to maybe spare the people of Europe further destruction--  the Shield Brethern, lead by their leader Feronantus have other ideas.   While some will answer the Khan's challenge, Feronantus and a chosen few, lead by Cnan will travel to the east where the will kill the Khan of Khans, Ogedei hopefully plunging the Mongol Empire into chaos and anarchy.

But in Karakorum, the Great Khan Ogedei wrestles with demons of his own.  The luxury and softness of his palace conceal a nest of warring factions and plots and secrets as he remains haunted by the sacrifice of his brother Tolui and turns to drink, remembering an easier, more martial time when he was a warrior, when he was younger.  When Gansukh, a warrior emissary from his brother the Khan Chagtai arrives in Karakorum with the challenging and potentially dangerous assignment of getting Ogedei to control his drinking, the Great Khan begins to confront his demons even as foes within and without draw closer upon their mission of his destruction.

Thus, kids, begins The Mongoliad-  which sucked me without any difficulty and like any good book, left me wanting more.  (Father Cigar has Book 3 in Italy.  Book 2 was retrieved from the Library of the Cigar Parentals two days ago and is currently sitting beside me waiting to be read.)  What immediately jumps out at you though is that this book has seven authors.   Yes, that's right seven: Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, ED deBirmingham, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey and Cooper Moo.  (No, that last one isn't a typo- and it's an exceedingly awesome name.)  According to that Font of All Knowledge, Wikipedia, this project started out as a 'secret history transmedia franchise.'

Hmmm...   I'm going to digest those last words a little bit but if I'm understanding the idea correctly, it was originally conceived as a sort of 'open source novel.'  A group of writers created a serialized format of stories that were originally released as a series of apps/downloads for smartphones that was eventually restructured and released as a definitive edition on Amazon Publishing before being turned into a trilogy (thus far-  don't know if there are plans for more.  One hopes there are!)

But here's the kicker:

According to Jeremy Bornstein, President of the Subutai Corporation, the genesis of the project was in Stephenson's dissatisfaction with the authenticity of the early modern sword fighting scenes he had written into his Baroque cycle of novels.^[1] Stephenson gathered a group of martial arts enthusiasts interested in studying historical European swordfighting, and this eventually resulted in some of the members of this group collaborating on a set of stories that would make use of accurate representations of these martial arts

That made me fall super hard in love with this book...  a writer (in this case Neal Stephenson- an admittedly awesome writer, I think) is unhappy with an aspect of some of his books (in this case the sword fights) and so gets together a group of writers who like sword fighting and creates a world where they can portray the martial arts/sword fightings as accurately as possible.

That is, in a word, awesome.

Overall:  You would think that a novel with seven authors might be a total trainwreck.  This one is not-  to be totally honest, after Chapter 2, you don't really care about who's writing what because the story is that good.  If you're in the market for a fascinating blend of fantasy and historical fiction with an epic quest, warrior monks and sword fighting all thrown in for good measure then look no further.  An awesome start to what will hopefully be an epic trilogy of this innovative new collaboration between some truly awesome writers.