Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Mongoliad - An Innovative New Approach to Digital Storytelling

Sincere apologies to my readers for not updating the blog this last month. Things have been absolutely insane and I am behind falling behind on several projects. However, I saw this article the other day on Neil Stephenson and Greg Bear's The Mongoliad and it sounded really interesting.

The concept - the brainchild of science fiction masters Stephenson and Bear - is essentially a serialized story that combines writers, artists, and experts in the construction of an epic story that takes place during the Mongol invasions of Europe. The website has a community aspect and brings the fans directly into the creative process. While it has some free information the core content requires a 10 dollar yearly subscription.Whether this is just a cool gimmick or an important step forward in the evolution of literature freed from some of the format demands of print remains to be seen. Nonetheless, I plan to do some more research and write more on this interesting project in the future.
              If there are any readers who subscribe to the Mongoliad, I would love to hear your thoughts about it. Do you enjoy it? Is it worth the money? Please let me know!