About the Saga of Life

The Saga of Life is a series of short fantasy stories that take place in the same world. It tells modern myths and fairy tales that—with magic, fun and detours—explain how life on earth came to be.

How did new animal species evolve? Where do people come from? What do Newton’s laws have to do with space travel? Which important wars were fought and why?

But you don’t have to read all of it, or in order, for it is a frame story! All stories are standalone. They all have their own time period, characters, location, and more. If you have a favorite character, for example, you might choose to only read stories including them.

The person who reads everything, however, will discover a grand picture of a magical world filled with … life.

The target audience

The stories can be read (on your own) from roughly ages 8 and up. I test this using the popular Flesch test for readability, of which the results are below each story.

The purpose of this saga, though, is to tell universal stories. Myths, legends, and folktales that both children and adults know and enjoy. I’m against the idea that children are too dumb for a serious story, or that adults only like reading unnecessarily complicated language.

Even better, you don’t have to believe me: read some stories on this website and see if you like it!

Although I write “family friendly”, life contains many harsh or sad elements. The Saga of Life wouldn’t work without their inclusion. Stories can take place during a war, characters might not survive, animals evolve and go extinct, and certainly not everything in life has a positive outcome.

Unsure where to start? Check my page Where do I start?.

The beta phase (2022-??)

This project is big and experimental, which is why I decided to give myself some time to figure things out before going “official”. A test phase or beta phase.

For now, all stories are online, completely free, and no official or physical versions can be purchased yet. The stories might be altered slightly. The website will probably change a few times under the hood.

When does this end? Once I am certain that the website, the concept, and the first stories are as strong and solid as can be. Once I have enough work to show and publicity to start with printed books. I expect this to happen in 2025.

What about the different languages? I am Dutch, which means each new story is written in that language first. I always, however, translate the stories manually (to English) before adding the final version to this website. Because I did not do that for the first few cycles, some of the oldest stories might be missing a translation—that should be resolved by the end of 2024.

How does the website work?

This website is the Saga of Life. Any official versions of the stories—which will be available for purchase once that beta phase is over—are a nicely formatted printout of this exact website.

In fact, the website is entirely open source! You can view or download its entire contents and code for free here: Saga of Life (on GitHub).

So you don’t have to make an account, the stories don’t suddenly stop after two chapters, there are no ads or popups, you can read everything and will miss nothing.

New here? Start with the very first story. Or one of the Starter stories.

Looking for something? There are many ways to navigate this website. Below is a very powerful search bar. Every story lists clickable information about itself, such as the characters included. On the front page you can search based on time period or genre.

Want to keep track of your progress? The website does this for you! As soon as you scroll to the end of a chapter, or click the next one, the system saves how far you’ve read. Want to reset this for a certain book? Click on “start reading” from its book page.

Why? Because we live in a digital age. More and more people, certainly children as well, mostly read digitally. With this experiment I try to get as many people as possible to read (more), with short accessible stories and a free website designed entirely for comfortable reading.

How can I help? You can obviously support the project by purchasing the official books. You can also look at other work of mine or simply donate.

Copyright

The full copyright of the Saga of Life is in the hands of Tiamo Pastoor (the author). The free accessibility of this website does not change that in any way. (See the copyright notice underneath every page.)

Stories (or parts thereof) may not be copied, sold, displayed, or otherwise used without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Interested in publishing The Saga of Life? I am open to publishing the Sage of Life through a traditional publisher. Send me a message! Hopefully, it marks the start of a beautiful collaboration.

Will the stories change?

Once stories are physically printed, I strive to change nothing at all. It would become an inconsistent mess otherwise. The general story is fixed, but I might fix small things. (Spelling errors, sentences that don’t flow as nicely as I want, extra pieces of information or foreshadowing referencing newer stories.)

While a story is only available digitally, I’m open for any feedback or changes. Each story is like an important LEGO brick in this huge building called The Saga of Life. I’d like to place each brick perfectly, and make it as strong as possible, before placing the next one on top.

(This is quite unusual among writers, but not entirely. Tolkien, for example, kept rewriting and improving The Hobbit until his death. Even though it was already a huge success and had undergone many versions.)

This, obviously, doesn’t mean that I place half-baked stories. It simply means that I make errors from time to time, and every story can always be improved. With this digital project, I have the luxury of always being able to do so, even after releasing a story years ago.

Where can I buy it (not yet!)

The books can be bought as paperback or ebook. Search for “The Saga of Life” in your favorite (book) store, or use the links below.

Each book is a bundle of two subsequent stories. (The same cycle, two subsequent time periods.) There are 10 time periods, which means you’ve been everywhere once after reading 5 subsequent bundles.

You can also visit each bundle’s page to find a direct link for purchase. This is the first bundle. Or use the overview of all bundles.

Please support the smaller book stores. Larger stores are not cheaper, yet they abuse their power to strike very unfavorable deals and keep most of the money for themselves. (In the Netherlands, for example, I’d always argue against buying from Bol.com.) I’ve been publishing for many years and can confidently say that one purchase from a smaller book store usually gives me 5x more profit than an identical purchase from the big, established websites.

The future

I created and planned the saga precisely to always be able to expand. To tell more stories, to fill in more gaps, to visit more locations. I have no illusions about ever having a story about everything life has to offer.

But there is a plan. A timeline, some overarching threads, events or ideas I really want to have turned into a story. I aim to write one cycle each year, a few stories per season.

I need at least 10 cycles ( = 100 stories) to tell the bulk of it, but the plan stretches to ~40 cycles.

I also entirely accept that such a long-term plan will mean that I change as a person and as a writer. Throughout the years, this will change the type of stories told, their quality, their themes, everything. (You can already see this now when comparing the very first stories with the latest ones, even though they might be only a few years apart!)

The Saga of Life will keep growing and developing. That’s why there’s no world map on the website, for example. As I write this, large parts are either empty or would contain spoilers.

Feedback is essential with such a project. If you didn’t like a story, or loved it, let me know! If the website doesn’t work for you, or you didn’t understand part of a story, let me know! Mail me at: [email protected].

Miscellaneous

You can always visit my portfolio for an overview of all my work and my latest projects. Or you can become a patreon to always get the latest updates and announcements.

Well, I guess it’s time to sign off and wish you joy and excitement while reading The Saga of Life :)