Mirage is a series of interrelated short stories, novellas and novels by Australian author Kevin J.J. Carpenter, which incorporates themes from several genres, including High Fantasy, Dystopian and Western. All of the stories within Mirage share a common universe: the world of Minéa, a land of political zest and violent cultural warfare that is still recovering from a recent apocalypse.
Work on the series began in 2006, in the form of a two-person role-play (a story written by two people, from two interchanging perspectives). Kevin J.J. Carpenter instantly fell in love with the characters he created and the small seed of a world that was starting to grow, so after several weeks when the role-play came to an end, he continued writing, developing a greater story and sketching out the world. Over the next few years, Kevin spent all of his spare time perfecting his craft; writing incessantly; reading everything he could get his hands on; and learning how to properly string a sentence together.
In 2009, at the age of seventeen, he finished his first novel, though it has since gone through nineteen different rewrites as he attempts to perfect the story. This novel, tentatively titled “The Red Hawks”, is the first in what will be a seven or eight book series, which chronicle the most important years in Minéa's long and tortured history, making up the core pattern of the great mosaic called Mirage.
There is more than a single story to tell though ...
The stories hosted on Mirage are, for lack of a better term, auxiliary stories. They are not auxiliary unto themselves—a conscious effort is employed to make each story a self-contained narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end—but they build upon themes, concepts and characters present in the core series. This does not mean every story needs to be read; they merely reward constant readers with a greater appreciation and understanding of the mosaic. Essentially, the more you read, the more of the larger picture you will uncover.
The aim of Mirage from our perspective.
Our world is inundated with larger publishers, many of whom are constantly producing derivative narratives that are guaranteed to sell, regardless of the quality of prose. While any good businessman would agree that these decision are economically sound, most bona fide authors and their readers would agree that there is more to the literary world than money alone. Alas, ambitious projects with a degree of risk—or even those from unknown and unproven authors—are often ignored by big publishers without a second glance. We agree that independent publishing is the answer, and as we’re all striving to prove, it can be very a very rewarding venture.
Mirage is our attempt to bridge the gap and offer something of value, we’re going to try something a little bit different though.
The stories we initially offer will be available for FREE. While Kevin is still hard at work on his final novel, he is also penning many shorter narratives, which will offer our audience a taste of greater things to come, while still remaining self-contained stories unto themselves. Many of the characters readers will encounter in these narratives will come around again, and similarly, the places shown and the events exposed will all be familiar once the final novel is unveiled.
We came to this decision because we’ve observed a change in the way people consume content. With the advent of freely available online content, and streaming services that charge a pittance for a lifetime’s supply of entertainment, it’s time for the literary world to embrace the new medium. It is much more common for burgeoning creator’s to offer their content online without asking for compensation, but still providing a means for monetary donations if their audience feels they deserve as such. This is the model we wish to eventually embrace, and while we have not yet implemented the means of accepting donations, we anticipate that when we do—hopefully with delicious perks and gifts—our audience will be accepting to the idea and be generous in their offerings.
The stories hosted on Mirage will be available to download directly in the most popular formats, and will also be online at iBooks, Wattpad, and various other free outlets as we uncover them. At the moment, our first novella is online and ready to read, with our second hopefully coming soon.
We would love to hear your thoughts on our idea! Do you have any opinions or suggestions? If anyone would like to help with the progress, we’re very keen to invite interested parties into our project. We are also happy to affiliate with other independent authors and provide a direct link to your website on our front page.
Mirage is a series of interrelated short stories, novellas and novels by Australian author Kevin J.J. Carpenter, which incorporates themes from several genres, including High Fantasy, Dystopian and Western. All of the stories within Mirage share a common universe: the world of Minéa, a land of political zest and violent cultural warfare that is still recovering from a recent apocalypse.
Work on the series began in 2006, in the form of a two-person role-play (a story written by two people, from two interchanging perspectives). Kevin J.J. Carpenter instantly fell in love with the characters he created and the small seed of a world that was starting to grow, so after several weeks when the role-play came to an end, he continued writing, developing a greater story and sketching out the world. Over the next few years, Kevin spent all of his spare time perfecting his craft; writing incessantly; reading everything he could get his hands on; and learning how to properly string a sentence together.
In 2009, at the age of seventeen, he finished his first novel, though it has since gone through nineteen different rewrites as he attempts to perfect the story. This novel, tentatively titled “The Red Hawks”, is the first in what will be a seven or eight book series, which chronicle the most important years in Minéa's long and tortured history, making up the core pattern of the great mosaic called Mirage.
There is more than a single story to tell though ...
The stories hosted on Mirage are, for lack of a better term, auxiliary stories. They are not auxiliary unto themselves—a conscious effort is employed to make each story a self-contained narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end—but they build upon themes, concepts and characters present in the core series. This does not mean every story needs to be read; they merely reward constant readers with a greater appreciation and understanding of the mosaic. Essentially, the more you read, the more of the larger picture you will uncover.
The aim of Mirage from our perspective.
Our world is inundated with larger publishers, many of whom are constantly producing derivative narratives that are guaranteed to sell, regardless of the quality of prose. While any good businessman would agree that these decision are economically sound, most bona fide authors and their readers would agree that there is more to the literary world than money alone. Alas, ambitious projects with a degree of risk—or even those from unknown and unproven authors—are often ignored by big publishers without a second glance. We agree that independent publishing is the answer, and as we’re all striving to prove, it can be very a very rewarding venture.
Mirage is our attempt to bridge the gap and offer something of value, we’re going to try something a little bit different though.
The stories we initially offer will be available for FREE. While Kevin is still hard at work on his final novel, he is also penning many shorter narratives, which will offer our audience a taste of greater things to come, while still remaining self-contained stories unto themselves. Many of the characters readers will encounter in these narratives will come around again, and similarly, the places shown and the events exposed will all be familiar once the final novel is unveiled.
We came to this decision because we’ve observed a change in the way people consume content. With the advent of freely available online content, and streaming services that charge a pittance for a lifetime’s supply of entertainment, it’s time for the literary world to embrace the new medium. It is much more common for burgeoning creator’s to offer their content online without asking for compensation, but still providing a means for monetary donations if their audience feels they deserve as such. This is the model we wish to eventually embrace, and while we have not yet implemented the means of accepting donations, we anticipate that when we do—hopefully with delicious perks and gifts—our audience will be accepting to the idea and be generous in their offerings.
The stories hosted on Mirage will be available to download directly in the most popular formats, and will also be online at iBooks, Wattpad, and various other free outlets as we uncover them. At the moment, our first novella is online and ready to read, with our second hopefully coming soon.
We would love to hear your thoughts on our idea! Do you have any opinions or suggestions? If anyone would like to help with the progress, we’re very keen to invite interested parties into our project. We are also happy to affiliate with other independent authors and provide a direct link to your website on our front page.
Thanks very much for reading!
Crystal Dawn,
Mirage Business Manager
Links
Mirage: http://www.miragestories.com
Strife: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...