Nicole Galland is the author of: The Fool’s Tale, Revenge of the Rose, Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade and I, Iago. After growing up on Martha’s Vineyard and graduating with honors from Harvard, she divided most of the next 16 years between California and New York City before returning to the Vineyard to stay. During those 16 years she variously made her living in theatre, screenwriting, magazine publishing, grad-schooling, teaching, temping, and random other enterprises. She is the co-founder of Shakespeare for the Masses, a project that irreverently makes the Bard accessible to the Bardophobics of the world.

SF Signal is delighted to have the opportunity to talk with Nicole Galland, author of one of the seven authors of the group-authored trilogy The Mongoliad. She takes time out with us to talk about the evolution of The Mongoliad concept, the delights of cross-country composition via Skype, and how both a methods of writing and storylines evolve over time.

SF SIGNAL: How did the idea of The Mongoliad originally develop?

NICOLE GALLAND: My understanding is that the guys wanted to create a story set in the 1300′s as a screenplay (it was to be called Gallowglass), and somehow that evolved in reverse chronological order to the tumultuous events in Europe, 1241. As that shift was happening, they decided to pursue technological innovation in the way the story was deliverable in non-book form.

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Today’s Kindle Daily Deal at Amazon U.S. is Book 1 of The Foreworld Saga, The Mongoliad: Book One by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, E.D. deBirmingham, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey and Cooper Moo.
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From New York Times bestselling, Hugo and Nebula award-winning authors Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear comes The Mongoliad Trilogy, the first installment in the Foreworld Saga, a collaborative epic (with Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, E.D. deBirmingham, Cooper Moo, and Mark Teppo) unlike any other that will enthrall fans of fantasy, martial arts, and historical fiction.
Here’s the book description:

The first novel to be released in The Foreworld Saga, The Mongoliad: Book One, is an epic-within-an-epic, taking place in 13th century. In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.

But the saga reaches the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.

Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.

And here’s the trailer:
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