The Great Geek Manual

Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “The 11th Day” by Christopher Fowler at Tales To Terrify.
• Listen to “Another Word for Map is Faith” by Christopher Rowe at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Certus Per Bellum” by S. Hutson Blount at Escapepod.
• Listen to “The Dead” by Michael Swanwick at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “Gingerbread And Ashes” by Jaelithe Ingold at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Incompatible” by Will McIntosh at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “The Next Joe Jones” by Russ Colson at Cast of Wonders.
• Listen to “Nightside on Callisto” by Linda Nagata at Lightspeed Magazine.
• Listen to “The Paradise Aperture” by David Carani at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “When The Black Bird Circles Back” by Greg van Eekhout
• Listen to Where the Wild Things Are (as read by Christopher Walken).

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Aphrodisia” by Lavie Tidhar at Escape Pod.
• Listen to “Divorce in the House of Flies” by Dustin Reade at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “Jewels In The Dust” by Peter Crowther at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to The Most Precious of Treasures by Desmond Warzel (Part 2).
• Listen to “Our Town” by Kim Stanley Robinson at LightSpeed Magazine.
• Listen to “Outlander” by Samantha Henderson at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Pridecraft” by Christian K. Martinez at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
• Listen to “The Prophet’s Daughters” by Michael J. DeLuca at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Sins Of The Living” by Barbara Barnett-Stewart at Tales To Terrify.
• Listen to “The Sympathy” by Eric Gregory at Lightspeed Magazine.
• Listen to “The Womb Factory” by Peter M. Ferenczi at Clarkesword Magazine.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Arm of the Law” by Harry Harrison at The Drama Pod.
• Listen to “The Body Snatchers” by Robert Louis Stevenson at Journey Into…
• Listen to “The Colour out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft at Tales To Terrify.
• Listen to “Lila The Werewolf” by Peter S. Beagle at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Living Clay” by Lucy Oliver at Cast of Wonders.
• Listen to “The Other Lila” by Gwendolyn Clare at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu at Escapepod.
• Listen to “Rust Islands” by Storm Constantine at StarShipSofa.

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Book: The Mongoliad: Book One
ISBN-13: 978-1612182360

Author: Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear
Series: The Foreworld Saga, Book 1
Publisher: 47North
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release: April 24, 2012
Length: 442 pages (Paperback)

Book Rating: B (85 / 100)

Verdict

If Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead had been written by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Mongoliad would have been the final result.

Fans of historical fiction are certain to count The Mongoliad as a staple of the genre, and hardcore Neal Stephenson won’t be disappointed, either. However, The Mongoliad suffers from the same shortcomings as most books of the historical fiction genre. It is a bit dry, due to the historical tone of the narration, a bit overly cerebral, due to the necessity of explaining the details of medieval living, and a bit slow due to the sheer volume of exposition required by those explanations. The overall effect is the The Mongoliad is not a heavy piece of reading, but that much is obvious simply by virtue of Neal Stephenson’s name on the cover.

Pros: Highly authentic historical detail. Frequent, inventive battle scenes.

Cons: Unpronounceable character names. Little-to-no suspense. Slow start. Story pacing drags a bit. Sudden ending leaves the book feeling incomplete.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “The Blue Heeler” by Weston Ochse at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “Buried Eyes” by Lavie Tidhar at PodCastle.
• Listen to “A Clean Sweep Of It” by Thomas Canfield at Cast of Wonders.
• Listen to “Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes” by Tom Crosshill.
• Listen to “Our Drunken Tjeng” by Nicky Drayden at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Ruminations in an Alien Tongue” by Vandana Singh at Lightspeed.
• Listen to ““Run,” Bakri Says” by Ferrett Steinmetz at Escapepod.
• Listen to “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” by Neil Gaiman.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “The Book of Locked Doors” by Yoon Ha Lee at Ceaseless Skies.
• Listen to “Counting Cracks” by George R. Galuschak at Escapepod.
• Listen to “Electric Rains” by Kathleen Ann Goonan at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “Giant Episode: Golden City Far” by Gene Wolfe at PodCastle.
• Listen to “The God Complex” by Neil John Buchanan at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” by Stephen King at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “Hypergraphia” by Ken Lillie-Paetz at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “Inksucker” by Aidan Doyle at Cast of Wonders.
• Listen to “The Last Words Of Daniel Shupak” by Erich William Bergmeier.
• Listen to “Test Drive” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “Yew Will Know Me” by M.R. James at Retro 19 Nocturne.

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Yesterday, I received a copy of The Mongoliad (Book One of The Foreworld Saga) by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear in the mail from Wunderkind PR.

I was momentarily confused upon opening the package, as I had read articles on BoingBoing and io9 describing The Mongoliad as an experiment in interactive storytelling, but evidently, it’s a book, too. More to the point, it’s a book inspired by “Stephenson’s dissatisfaction with the authenticity of the medieval sword fighting scenes he had written into his Baroque cycle of novels” and written by some of my favorite authors.

Needless to say, I am highly intrigued. I’ll be posting a review of the book in the very near future.

Check out the Facebook page and website for The Mongoliad; they feature extras such as author interviews, fan cheat sheets, and interactive app downloads, and they promise more extras are on the way.
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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “All You Can Do Is Breath” by Kaarron Warren at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “The Crucifixion of the Outcast” by William Butler Yeats at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Giant Episode: Golden City Far” by Gene Wolfe at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Graffiti Sonata” by Gene O’Neill at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “Her Husbands Hands” by Adam Troy Castro at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “A Logic Named Joe” by Murray Leinster at Journey Into…
• Listen to “The Spacemice Incident” by Carl Frederick at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “The Speed of Time” by Jay Lake at Escape Pod.
• Listen to “Suicide Coast” by M John Harrison at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys” by Chris Schryer at Drabblecast.

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