Mongoliad project has launched, apps still coming soon

Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad project has launched -- you can go browse the website right now and read through the offerings available. As Cory Doctorow posts, the project is a series of episodic stories and materials portraying a universe put together by Stephenson and a few other author friends. The idea seems to be that you pay a subscription fee ($5.99 for six months, or $9.99 for a year), and then get access to whatever fiction content is being posted at that time, as well as a giant online Wikipedia-style database of the universe's background. There's not much about the story itself, but Doctorow calls it "epic, a swashbuckling swordplay novel with the sweep, charm and verve of the major Stephenson epics, such as System of the World." That right there sounds interesting enough to pay six bucks and see what's going on.

Unless, that is, you want to actually wait for it on the iPhone. Originally, this was announced as a project that would make its way to mobile devices (like the iPhone), but it looks like we'll have to wait for that. The main page of the project says that they'll "soon be taking subscriptions for app delivery to some of the most popular mobile devices," so I'll probably wait on paying any money until that service comes up -- don't want to pay twice. But we'll keep an eye out for it and let you know when it's available.

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Source: http://mongoliad.com/

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Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad project has launched -- you can go browse the website right now and read through the offerings available. As...

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Noah

I picked up a 6 month subscription to see what they've posted... and so far so good. I suppose the value of the subscription depends on how much content is available.

So there's a fine line... do you become an early adopter to help fund the new content, or do you wait until the entire "book" is online and subscribe then? (which may or may not happen based on the early adopters).

September 07 2010 at 10:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Noah's comment

Dawn

I also subscribed. I'm a huge Neal Stephenson fan, and it looks like it will be interesting to see how the project progresses. It is not really like early adopting in which you buy a finished product, albeit with some bugs. Subscribing now rather than buying a finished product lets you participate in the process.

September 07 2010 at 12:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Noah

@Dawn: Exactly... but here's the point I was trying to make:

A few years ago Tad Williams (Memory, Sorrow, Thorn / Otherland) tried something similar with a book called Shadowmarch. It was going to be released on a bi-weekly or monthly basis, and subscribers could read the story as it progressed.

The problem was simply this: not enough people subscribed to make the venture worthwhile for Tad and his family. Many people wanted a complete book, and waited till nearly everything was published before subscribing.

In consequence, Tad announced that the project was ending, and he was going back to the standard format of releasing books via a publisher.

I'm afraid that Neil's project will go the same route if people end up waiting to subscribe when more content is available. It's a catch-22.

September 07 2010 at 12:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply