The Mongoliad: Book 1

The Mongoliad is a historical fiction novel written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo, and E. D. deBirmingham.  This book may have more authors than anything I have read that was not a collection of short stories.  The reason this book has so many authors is that it was created by a group that Neal Stephenson rounded up after being dissatisfied with the quality of swordfighting in his Baroque Cycle (which I reviewed earlier).  These authors ended up getting together and learning a lot about swordfighting and the medieval era.  The website mongoliad.com is interesting, I recommend you check it out.

On to the book itself. It is the first part of a trilogy, and unfortunately not that long.  However, it makes up for it shortness by being packed full of action and interesting characterization.  In addition, as you would expect from a book with this creation story, the fighting scenes are all top notch.  One scene in particular shows a man with a pole arm dueling a man with a sword.  The fight alternates back and forth between their viewpoints, highlighting their individual strengths and weaknesses.  It is a great scene, in and of itself almost worth the price of admission.  With this many authors, a reader might be skeptical that it sounds like too many voices are clashing and ruining the story.  This is decidedly not the case.  There are certainly different styles, but I never felt that they were competing or hampering each other.

The only real issue that I had with this book was that it ended on a cliffhanger and the next book doesn't come out until September.  The last few series I have read, I have had the luxury of reading them all in a row and so it is somewhat frustrating to have to wait.

All in all, this is certainly worth a read, (free from the kindle lending library).  If you are a fan of swordfighting or historical fiction, I recommend you pick it up.

Overall, I would give this book a 87%.