Neal Stephenson creates book experiment

Neal Stephenson, the American author of Anathem, and the Cryptonomicon (amongst others) has begun to create a collaborative experiment in 21st century publishing with renowned author Greg Bear, Nicole Galland, Mark Teppo and others.

This experiment, titled "The Mongoliad" is a serialised story that is going to be available via custom reader applications on the iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle and is being designed to be as interactive as possible.

The novel itself is based around the fears over the invasion of the Mongols as they threaten Western Europe in 1241 AD. Stephenson's ideas behind the novel are to write historical, exciting medivial fight scenes and to that end is collaborating with people that have experience in Martial Arts.

The concept is a very exciting one and could move the book form in a very different (and 21st Century) direction if successful. If you want to keep up to date with the experiment, you can visit their own Facebook page.