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A couple years ago, I spent a very happy month reading this insanely epic webnovel. While on vacation in Europe, I re-read it. All one million words of it. No regrets.
What's Worm about?
It's about Taylor Hebert, a bullied teenage girl who gets the ability to control bugs, in a world where people mysteriously started getting powers thirty years before the book begins. She's a fantastic, memorable character - an antiheroine of the "the end justifies the means" variety - who means well (mostly), is often absolutely terrifying and mostly doesn't notice, is incredibly ingenious at using bugs to do basically anything, and carries an extremely epic story with ease.
The powers appear in moments of intense trauma (trigger events), and relate to that trauma and/or to the person's psychological issues in general. So people with powers have gone through something horrible and may be reminded of it whenever they use their new powers, or may have a power that's an ironic reflection on their problems, or one which would have prevented the trauma if they'd only gotten it in time. For instance, a person who blames themselves for not noticing that a loved one was suicidal might get the power to read people's emotions... when they trigger after the suicide. Unsurprisingly, people with powers (capes) tend to be emotionally damaged.
There's differences in how capes work in different countries, but in the US, capes are classified as heroes, villains, or rogues. Heroes are theoretically the good guys, but actually this means they work for the government and fight villains. Villains are theoretically the bad guys, but actually this means they're criminals or mercenaries who don't work for the government. Rogues are neither cops nor criminals, and there's not many of them; why is spoilery.
Taylor wants to be a hero, but her initial contact with heroes doesn't go well. She ends up going undercover in a group of teenage villains, the Undersiders. Her plan is to gather info on them from the inside, find out who their mysterious boss is, and then turn them in to the heroes. But in the classic problem with undercover work, she starts making friends with the people she plans to betray. Also, she's good at being a villain...
What's good about this book?
1. Taylor (Skitter). I fucking love Taylor. She's an all-time great character. I spent one million words with her, and I could happily spend one million more. She's ruthless, pragmatic, socially awkward, brilliant in certain spheres, angry, distrustful of authority (with good reason!), will go to the wire for people she cares about or wants to protect, and never, ever gives up. She's my favorite iron woobie and I adore her.
2. The characters in general. There's an absolutely enormous cast, and I could reel off twenty or so characters who are absolute favorites.
Without spoilers, I love Lisa (Tattletale), whose official power is information gathering and whose unofficial power is sarcasm; Rachel (Bitch - don't you dare call her Hellhound), whose power is temporarily turning dogs into giant monster dogs, who loves dogs and mostly can't stand people, and who has a character arc that rivals Taylor's; Sabah (Parian), a rogue who can control constructs made of cloth and so rides around on and fights villains with giant stuffed unicorns, teddy bears, etc; Lily (Flechette), a hero whose power of shooting big arrows turns out to have a lot more to it than is initially apparent and keeps hanging out with a certain stuffed animal controlling rogue...
For people who have already read the book, my favorites for whom it's spoilery to even say why I love them include Imp, Dragon, Defiant, Chevalier, Sveta, the Travelers, Faultline's crew, and (in a way) the Simurgh and Bonesaw, a psychopathic mad scientist who never matured past the age she triggered, so she's an adorable little girl who enjoys doing sadistic noncon surgery as an art form.
3. The plot. After a slightly slow start, it's incredibly page-turny, with one jaw-dropping twist after another. I can't say I couldn't put it down because I HAD to put it down, but I spent an entire month fidgeting through the rest of my life, itching to get back to it.
4. The worldbuilding. It's much more solid and well-worked-out than it appears at first, with a lot of things that initially don't seem to make sense worked into a satisfying whole. It also deals a lot with logistics: After a disaster hits the city, Taylor ends up ruling a substantial chunk of it. The book gets into the nitty-gritty of how she obtains and protects her minions (mostly completely ordinary people, and I love them), gets people food and water and childcare and other necessities, deals with people who don't respect her authority, etc. It's one of my favorite arcs.
5. The powers. The powers are incredibly inventive and clever, and used in inventive and clever ways. They all have drawbacks and limits in addition to unexpected uses. For instance, the teenage hero Clockblocker (who announced his hero name on TV so his boss couldn't make him take it back) can temporarily stop time for anything he touches, but has no idea how long the effect will last other than the maximum time is ten minutes. If he freezes a sheet of paper in time and then lets go of it, that paper acts as a completely impenetrable shield for as long as his power lasts.
6. The majority of the ginormous cast of characters are women and girls. They're evil masterminds, child soldiers, loners, leaders, sociopaths, idealists, friends, lovers, mad scientists, fuckups, bureaucrats, assassins, caregivers, bruisers, artists, monsters, and anything else you can think of.
7. There's a canon FF couple who I really like, Lily/Sabah who have a really hot sexy commander/loyal knight relationship. But apart from them, there's a lot of femslashy relationships. In fact part of why I'd love more people to get into this is I'd like more tropey femslash for my favorite non-canon pairings (Taylor/Rachel and Taylor/Lisa). Taylor is a little black dress who goes excellently with many other characters as well. Plus there's a very unique and awesome canon het relationship (D/D to avoid spoilers) who could do with more fic.
8. So many crowning moments of awesome. SO MANY. It's epic and it feels it.
Why might I NOT want to read this book?
1. One. Million. Words.
2. Some iffy racial issues - not horrendous IMO, more "you can tell a white guy wrote that." However, there's also excellent non-stereotypical characters of color (such as Sabah and Lily, mentioned above.)
3. It's really dark, though leavened by the characters having senses of humor, and sometimes tips into grimdark/overly gruesome or gross.
4. The first couple chapters are noticeably rockier than the rest.
5. The fandom (which is mostly on Reddit, spacebattles, and another forum I forget) is oddly reductionist - I'm not saying Taylor is a precious cinnamon roll covered in ants, but the fandom tends to go way overboard in the direction of "every decision she makes is WRONG" and "she's an unreliable narrator so everything she says about her own motives is WRONG." Most of the fanfic is on two forum-style sites that both make my eyes bleed, and 90% of it is "Taylor has a different power." I don't think the presence of the author and a very influential podcast (We've Got Worm) helps.
What potentially upsetting content does it contain?: EVERYTHING. But particularly bugs, body horror, and bullying. Also, rape (off-page), gore, torture, dead children, dead dogs, child abuse, and multiple fates worse than death.
SOLD! How can I read it?
Waiting for it to come out in print or official ebook format is not going to happen, due to aforesaid weird fandom dynamics leading to the author deciding not to do it. So...
1. Read it online. If this makes your eyes bleed...
2. Email me at Rphoenix2 @ gmail and I'll send you an epub. If you do this, please pay Wildbow something via his PayPal or Patreon. This is not an offer with an expiration date - I'll send it along any time.
Okay, I'm intrigued! But it's too intimidating to dive into all at once.
So, would anyone be interested in doing an arc-by-arc readalong? I could put up weekly discussion posts.
What's Worm about?
It's about Taylor Hebert, a bullied teenage girl who gets the ability to control bugs, in a world where people mysteriously started getting powers thirty years before the book begins. She's a fantastic, memorable character - an antiheroine of the "the end justifies the means" variety - who means well (mostly), is often absolutely terrifying and mostly doesn't notice, is incredibly ingenious at using bugs to do basically anything, and carries an extremely epic story with ease.
The powers appear in moments of intense trauma (trigger events), and relate to that trauma and/or to the person's psychological issues in general. So people with powers have gone through something horrible and may be reminded of it whenever they use their new powers, or may have a power that's an ironic reflection on their problems, or one which would have prevented the trauma if they'd only gotten it in time. For instance, a person who blames themselves for not noticing that a loved one was suicidal might get the power to read people's emotions... when they trigger after the suicide. Unsurprisingly, people with powers (capes) tend to be emotionally damaged.
There's differences in how capes work in different countries, but in the US, capes are classified as heroes, villains, or rogues. Heroes are theoretically the good guys, but actually this means they work for the government and fight villains. Villains are theoretically the bad guys, but actually this means they're criminals or mercenaries who don't work for the government. Rogues are neither cops nor criminals, and there's not many of them; why is spoilery.
Taylor wants to be a hero, but her initial contact with heroes doesn't go well. She ends up going undercover in a group of teenage villains, the Undersiders. Her plan is to gather info on them from the inside, find out who their mysterious boss is, and then turn them in to the heroes. But in the classic problem with undercover work, she starts making friends with the people she plans to betray. Also, she's good at being a villain...
What's good about this book?
1. Taylor (Skitter). I fucking love Taylor. She's an all-time great character. I spent one million words with her, and I could happily spend one million more. She's ruthless, pragmatic, socially awkward, brilliant in certain spheres, angry, distrustful of authority (with good reason!), will go to the wire for people she cares about or wants to protect, and never, ever gives up. She's my favorite iron woobie and I adore her.
2. The characters in general. There's an absolutely enormous cast, and I could reel off twenty or so characters who are absolute favorites.
Without spoilers, I love Lisa (Tattletale), whose official power is information gathering and whose unofficial power is sarcasm; Rachel (Bitch - don't you dare call her Hellhound), whose power is temporarily turning dogs into giant monster dogs, who loves dogs and mostly can't stand people, and who has a character arc that rivals Taylor's; Sabah (Parian), a rogue who can control constructs made of cloth and so rides around on and fights villains with giant stuffed unicorns, teddy bears, etc; Lily (Flechette), a hero whose power of shooting big arrows turns out to have a lot more to it than is initially apparent and keeps hanging out with a certain stuffed animal controlling rogue...
For people who have already read the book, my favorites for whom it's spoilery to even say why I love them include Imp, Dragon, Defiant, Chevalier, Sveta, the Travelers, Faultline's crew, and (in a way) the Simurgh and Bonesaw, a psychopathic mad scientist who never matured past the age she triggered, so she's an adorable little girl who enjoys doing sadistic noncon surgery as an art form.
3. The plot. After a slightly slow start, it's incredibly page-turny, with one jaw-dropping twist after another. I can't say I couldn't put it down because I HAD to put it down, but I spent an entire month fidgeting through the rest of my life, itching to get back to it.
4. The worldbuilding. It's much more solid and well-worked-out than it appears at first, with a lot of things that initially don't seem to make sense worked into a satisfying whole. It also deals a lot with logistics: After a disaster hits the city, Taylor ends up ruling a substantial chunk of it. The book gets into the nitty-gritty of how she obtains and protects her minions (mostly completely ordinary people, and I love them), gets people food and water and childcare and other necessities, deals with people who don't respect her authority, etc. It's one of my favorite arcs.
5. The powers. The powers are incredibly inventive and clever, and used in inventive and clever ways. They all have drawbacks and limits in addition to unexpected uses. For instance, the teenage hero Clockblocker (who announced his hero name on TV so his boss couldn't make him take it back) can temporarily stop time for anything he touches, but has no idea how long the effect will last other than the maximum time is ten minutes. If he freezes a sheet of paper in time and then lets go of it, that paper acts as a completely impenetrable shield for as long as his power lasts.
6. The majority of the ginormous cast of characters are women and girls. They're evil masterminds, child soldiers, loners, leaders, sociopaths, idealists, friends, lovers, mad scientists, fuckups, bureaucrats, assassins, caregivers, bruisers, artists, monsters, and anything else you can think of.
7. There's a canon FF couple who I really like, Lily/Sabah who have a really hot sexy commander/loyal knight relationship. But apart from them, there's a lot of femslashy relationships. In fact part of why I'd love more people to get into this is I'd like more tropey femslash for my favorite non-canon pairings (Taylor/Rachel and Taylor/Lisa). Taylor is a little black dress who goes excellently with many other characters as well. Plus there's a very unique and awesome canon het relationship (D/D to avoid spoilers) who could do with more fic.
8. So many crowning moments of awesome. SO MANY. It's epic and it feels it.
Why might I NOT want to read this book?
1. One. Million. Words.
2. Some iffy racial issues - not horrendous IMO, more "you can tell a white guy wrote that." However, there's also excellent non-stereotypical characters of color (such as Sabah and Lily, mentioned above.)
3. It's really dark, though leavened by the characters having senses of humor, and sometimes tips into grimdark/overly gruesome or gross.
4. The first couple chapters are noticeably rockier than the rest.
5. The fandom (which is mostly on Reddit, spacebattles, and another forum I forget) is oddly reductionist - I'm not saying Taylor is a precious cinnamon roll covered in ants, but the fandom tends to go way overboard in the direction of "every decision she makes is WRONG" and "she's an unreliable narrator so everything she says about her own motives is WRONG." Most of the fanfic is on two forum-style sites that both make my eyes bleed, and 90% of it is "Taylor has a different power." I don't think the presence of the author and a very influential podcast (We've Got Worm) helps.
What potentially upsetting content does it contain?: EVERYTHING. But particularly bugs, body horror, and bullying. Also, rape (off-page), gore, torture, dead children, dead dogs, child abuse, and multiple fates worse than death.
SOLD! How can I read it?
Waiting for it to come out in print or official ebook format is not going to happen, due to aforesaid weird fandom dynamics leading to the author deciding not to do it. So...
1. Read it online. If this makes your eyes bleed...
2. Email me at Rphoenix2 @ gmail and I'll send you an epub. If you do this, please pay Wildbow something via his PayPal or Patreon. This is not an offer with an expiration date - I'll send it along any time.
Okay, I'm intrigued! But it's too intimidating to dive into all at once.
So, would anyone be interested in doing an arc-by-arc readalong? I could put up weekly discussion posts.