|
Welcome to the Web Serial Megathread! What is a Serial? With the advent of the printing press, newspapers and magazines were all the rage. As the Victorian era began, many fiction authors started using them to publish fascicles, stories that came in multiple parts over a period of time. Many popular books were originally published this way, such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Sherlock Holmes, among others. While it declined in popularity over the years, especially in the past several decades, it has always remained present as a form of publication particularly for fiction. Then along comes the internet, which gave a lot of would-be authors a platform to easily show their stuff through Bulletin Board Systems, and then websites such as Fictionpress, Wordpress, and Livejournal. Translators started publishing translations of Light Novels and Xianxia in serialized form. Fanfiction grew from a weird thing middle-aged people wrote in Star Trek fan magazines into a behemoth of teen amateur writing. Then, in June of 2011, a guy going by the name Wildbow publishes Worm, a darker, more modern superhero story that becomes absurdly popular and starts a new trend in web serial publication, and it's been growing from there. So, to put it simply, a Web Serial is an internet-published story that is written and published one entry at a time. There's a lot of good ones, and far, far more terrible ones, and this thread is for talking about them! Sounds great, what should I read first? There are several popular web serials that are considered by many in the thread to be pretty good. Here's a few: Worm, by Wildbow. quote:An introverted teenage girl with an unconventional superpower, Taylor goes out in costume to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. Her first attempt at taking down a supervillain sees her mistaken for one, thrusting her into the midst of the local ‘cape’ scene’s politics, unwritten rules, and ambiguous morals. As she risks life and limb, Taylor faces the dilemma of having to do the wrong things for the right reasons. Ward, by Wildbow. The sequel to Worm, currently updating and pretty much the hottest poo poo on the block right now. Spoiler policy is in effect as described below, but as always read the thread at your own discretion. Twig, also by Wildbow. quote:The year is 1921, and a little over a century has passed since a great mind unraveled the underpinnings of life itself. Every week, it seems, the papers announce great advances, solving the riddle of immortality, successfully reviving the dead, the cloning of living beings, or blending of two animals into one. For those on the ground, every week brings new mutterings of work taken by ‘stitched’ men of patchwork flesh that do not need to sleep, or more fearful glances as they have to step off the sidewalks to make room for great laboratory-grown beasts. Often felt but rarely voiced is the notion that events are already spiraling out of the control of the academies that teach these things. The Gods are Bastards by D.D.Webb. quote:It was a land of sword and sorcery, knights and castles, adventure and heroics . . . but that was a thousand years ago. The Gods are Bastards brings high fantasy forward into the Industrial Revolution, to a more complicated and more cynical era. In the world of Tiraas, an ancient Church is making its final grab for ultimate power, an upstart young University seeks to bring its Enlightenment ethos to the world, and a teetering Empire struggles to balance tradition with progress. Better weapons, magics and technologies have changed the landscape, for better and for worse, and the age of ancient evils and heroic deeds is long over. So when an ancient evil does rise again and heroes are needed to beat it back, the people of Tiraas must scramble to meet the challenge . . . if they can only stop scheming against each other long enough. One thing is becoming clear: this time around, the gods will be no help. Mother of Learning by nobody103. quote:Zorian, a mage in training, only wanted to finish his education in peace. Now he struggles to find answers as he finds himself repeatedly reliving the same month. ‘Groundhog’s day’ style setup in a fantasy world. Unsong by Scott Alexander. Unsong is a pretty huge departure from the rest of the stories here. It's set primarily in the modern day, with lots of flashbacks and other perspectives over the past several decades following the Apollo moon landing. It's about Jewish mythology, Kabbalah, and religion, with the divine machine keeping the world running on physics having been broken and the Names of God now functioning akin to magic spells... sort of. It's a comedy, with some similarities in presentation to Douglas Adams' stories. No background in religion is required to understand the basic gist of this, but a basic understanding of Jewish mythology or at least the Bible's old testament will help make a lot of the jokes make sense. Just be prepared for puns out the wazoo. Completed as of early 2017. The Wandering Inn by pirateaba The Wandering Inn is a a story about--well, several people, actually, but primarily, a girl from earth who finds herself teleported into a fantasy world while trying to enter her bathroom. Rather than become a legendary hero, she ends up becoming an innkeeper. However, life isn't so simple, as she still ends up becoming very important to the world. This story takes some obvious inspiration from both western serials like Worm, as well as from Japanese isekai web novels like Kumo Desu Ga--primarily by using the conceit that everyone in that world has discrete levels and skills, like in an RPG. Unlike other stories of the sort, though, the level system isn't an excuse to have a quantifiable power fantasy where we just watch the numbers keep going up. Rather, the level system actually ties in to the larger story, with hints that there are sinister reasons behind why such a system even exists at all. The Wandering Inn updates regularly and consistently every Tuesday and Saturday, and occasionally on other days, when the author has some side stories to share. --Argue Worth the Candle by cthulhuraejepsen: A slightly emo but surprisingly mature teen gets dumped into a grotesque amalgamation of (early setting spoiler) the settings he created as a dungeon master. Aerb is not a kind world: there are lots of hells, no heaven, and the motorcycles run on extracted souls. But at least our plucky hero is OP as all hell and has the key to seven locks. WtC is a LitRPG that tonally feels nothing like other LitRPG's. Want a story where the hero is amazed and delighted by their new world and abilities, and has lots of fun, energizing adventures? Well then get the gently caress out because that ain't Worth the Candle; this is a LitRPG that takes poo poo serious. WtC is very well-written, especially by web serial standards, but also ratfic (rational fiction), heavy on on the rat, which is not to everyone's tastes. --Cicero A Practical Guide to Evil by ERRATICERRATA Ra by qntm If you are a web serial author If you're writing or have written a web serial of your own, you're welcome to post a link to it here and request feedback, engage in discussion, etc. That said, don't use this thread to frequently advertise, and don't directly post paypal/patreon/gofundme/etc. links in the thread. Goon authors: Not All Heroes by forums poster Milky Moor Into the Mire by forums poster Anomalous Blowout, which has been nominated for a slew of awards: Anomalous Blowout posted:Into the Mire has been officially longlisted for my country's highest literary honour for fantasy: Katalepsis, by forums poster Hungry: Hungry posted:It's an urban fantasy story / lesbian supernatural soap opera, with a little bit of a horror coating. I didn't want to link it here until I was certain I'd be sticking with it, so here it is. New chapters currently every Saturday, though I'm trying to build up to twice a week instead. I'm not an incredible writer or anything, and I guess the story can get a little grisly at times, so it might not be to everyone's taste. If anybody does check it out, I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Blood is Mine by forums poster Lunatic Sledge: Lunatic Sledge posted:alright, so in 2017 I started Blood is Mine, an interactive sci-fi / body horror story with (original) sprite art. I hosed up toward the end, so it doesn't stick the landing as well as I'd like, but overall I enjoyed working on it. People would post in the comments what the protagonist should do, and I'd write new pages accordingly; at the start I was updating 10 to 20 times per day, but the average size of each page eventually got so big that I had to slow it down. quote:The Postapoc Project by D34THROW Spoiler Policy To avoid ruining surprises for anyone who hasn't quite caught up yet, discussion about anything in the past two updates of any active story must be enclosed in Spoiler Tags. Additionally, if there is someone actively posting in the thread who is currently reading a story, please put spoiler tags around any significant plot details of that story. That said, this thread will not necessarily be safe to read in its entirety if you haven't finished Worm, or caught up on Practical Guide or Mother of Learning or what have you. Use your best judgment! (OP under construction still, please write summaries) Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Nov 16, 2021 |
# ¿ Aug 24, 2017 15:07 |
|
|
# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 01:32 |
|
Reserved
|
# ¿ Aug 24, 2017 15:10 |
|
Thanks, and I did not know that there was an ADTRW thread, that's good to know.
|
# ¿ Aug 24, 2017 16:45 |
|
So do you guys want me putting everything that everyone recommends into the OP, or just the stuff that a lot of people are reading?
|
# ¿ Aug 26, 2017 06:15 |
|
Oh god, imagine the absurd quantity of porn parodies. And that's not even getting into the possibilities of parahuman adult entertainment, but we definitely don't need to be going there.
|
# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 19:15 |
|
I just read 3.08H of The Wandering Inn and oh my god, what a fantastic end to that small arc. After all the despair and awful poo poo happening to the main characters since late book 2, things going stupendously well for once is really great.
|
# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 20:08 |
|
Ryoka's misanthropy is a constant source of loving her over in small ways, and is equal parts "this is really tedious" and "these are the best fuckin one-liners goddamn" I get why she gets a lot of criticism as a character, especially for one specific part of late book two where she asspulls a major plot element out of kinda nowhere, but she's also got a lot of interesting poo poo goin on around her especially once Winter starts.
|
# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 14:50 |
|
UNSONG's humor tends to be a bit out there, but goddamn when it hits it hits.
|
# ¿ Sep 9, 2017 05:41 |
|
Lone Goat posted:I think Patreon is only one or two episodes ahead? I just got the email for 3.12 E a couple hours ago. Patreon donors get one update more than everyone else, plus side stories which get made public monthly. Important Stuff like Emperor or Horns of Hammerhead chapters count as the main story.
|
# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 00:08 |
|
She also has textbook ASPD.
|
# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 13:11 |
|
They may be insufferable but they're easily my favorite part of the cast. e: I mean the winter faeries, not Ryoka. Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Sep 13, 2017 |
# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 14:00 |
|
Affi posted:Oh no. I just read a chapter about mating habits. Ugh, yeah. There were a few bits that were funny but it was mostly just the worst kind of awful embarrassing cringe. I would highly recommend skipping it to anyone who hasn't read up to that point yet.
|
# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 15:59 |
|
pirateaba just posted 3.17 T. You know what that means!!!
|
# ¿ Sep 27, 2017 18:37 |
|
Wildbow's best stuff has always been the small scale events ( and characters and dialogue ) so I will be absolutely fine if the biggest conflict Worm 2 ever gets to is dudes overcoming a Lex Luthor level villain.
|
# ¿ Oct 9, 2017 02:40 |
|
I dunno if I'm ready for this. As an aside, I started reading Star Child and it's pretty good. About a kid with space warping powers that has to keep them secret because he lives in an orwellian state. Not really sure where it's going, though.
|
# ¿ Oct 20, 2017 07:39 |
|
It's Its probably not a character we have much info on, if not just a new one, though I suppose it could be shatterbird given that we don't really know anything about her personality.
|
# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 05:25 |
|
I would like the entirety of Worm 2 to be written from Bruce's PoV. He's a good boy!
|
# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 05:32 |
|
I have to think that the name initials are all false because Mangled Wings is talking more and more like Rachel. The username was probably given by Heart, whoever she is. These prologue chapters create like a dozen times as many questions as they do answers.
|
# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 20:29 |
|
Pussy Quipped posted:I'm willing to put money on Mangled Wings being a Damsel of Distress. Her arms and fingers were modified by bonesaw to be extra long, like a bat's wing with no skin. She consider's herself damaged, fallen from where she once was. She has a hard time with computers/technology, etc. Plus Damsels real name was Ashley I think and they refer to her as A. That actually makes a lot more sense.
|
# ¿ Nov 3, 2017 02:16 |
|
BENGHAZI 2 posted:WE KNOW THE TITLE AND IT IS PERFECT ffffffffffffffff We need a whole bunch of emotes, also a new OP entry that I'll totally get around to writing eventually.
|
# ¿ Nov 11, 2017 06:30 |
|
For those of you who haven't entirely caught up yet, 0.9 was loving wonderful. I wish I knew who Point_Me_@_The_Sky is, because that would probably make it so much better.
|
# ¿ Nov 11, 2017 06:58 |
|
Posting for posterity right before I jump into chapter 1 that I'm almost positive Point Me is Laserdream because I have no better guesses, so I'll get to see if I'm right or not. Edit: I'm so fuckin hype jesus christ Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Nov 11, 2017 |
# ¿ Nov 11, 2017 07:15 |
|
I feel like Yamada being the protagonist would have been better, but she was always my favorite Worm character so
|
# ¿ Nov 18, 2017 20:09 |
|
Her mother is uh... not that great.
|
# ¿ Nov 30, 2017 16:23 |
|
Extra chapter I guess? And it's EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED AAAAAAAAA
|
# ¿ Dec 2, 2017 07:21 |
|
We've got our first interlude, and it reveals in a bit of a roundabout way that Tattletale was running the villains' job through earpieces which raises all kinds of questions and is making me go back and comb through everything that's been released so far for more clues as to how the gently caress this is all fitting together. Also the poo poo with Nursery's "power" is loving terrifying.
|
# ¿ Dec 5, 2017 07:27 |
|
Stairmaster posted:my current wards prediction: things are gonna be okay I really, really wanna believe that. Maybe Wildbow has turned a new leaf and this story will be fairly optimistic and upbeat!
|
# ¿ Dec 12, 2017 18:14 |
|
Xun posted:So I just caught up to Wandering Inn, does anyone think that the main character is getting more than a bit..mary sue-ish? It feels like at the end everything she does is so quirky and also extremely successful/profitable/great. Not the mention the eyerolling stuff about her inventing plays. The only consequence she faces for leaving her inn unattended with no word to Lyon is someone says some mean words at her and then five minutes later they're helping her with another quirky plan anyway. Kind of a shame because I like the world building and side characters, and its really only the recent stuff bothering me. I hope this means they're building up to something here. Yeah I was expecting there to be actual consequences for how much of a selfish jerk Erin is most of the time, and other than all the poo poo with Toren there seems to be basically none of it because all the people who should be mad at her get caught up in her utterly ridiculous feats of bullshit and just kinda go with it. It's still wicked fun to read, though.
|
# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 14:06 |
|
I suddenly really, really like the direction Ward is going in. Victoria is gonna end up joining these guys and it's gonna be great. Jessica Yamada remains the best character.
|
# ¿ Dec 23, 2017 15:20 |
|
Angry Walrus posted:Yamada sucks
|
# ¿ Dec 25, 2017 00:25 |
|
eonwe posted:I started reading The Gods are Bastards today. Pretty dang good. I didn't know web serials were a *thing,* much less written this well. I'm glad you're enjoying it, it's one of my favorites. You should check out some of the others people talk about in this thread too, they're all good. Which reminds me that I haven't updated the OP in like forever so I should probably get on that. Does anyone have a good summary of Twig I can slap on there since I haven't read it yet?
|
# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 02:44 |
|
The new Wandering Inn interlude chapter is insane. I don't even know how to parse most of what happens.
|
# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 15:08 |
|
I'd advise anyone who is feeling a bit lost to reread the paralogue Glow Worm bit. Each chapter is from a single characters perspective: Point Me @ is Victoria, Heart is Kenzie, Cap is Tristan/Byron (who hires a hit on his other half it looks like?), Curious Cephalopod, Weird Insect, etc. are Chris (one account for each personality maybe?), Kraken is Sveta, Mangled is Ashley, of5 is Rain. There's a whole bunch of weird poo poo going down and we still only have a few of the pieces. Most of the assumptions we are making are probably wrong.
|
# ¿ Jan 17, 2018 00:24 |
|
violent sex idiot posted:christ had 32 accounts because he was trying to prevent kenzie spying on him not because of his multiple personalities i think It seemed more like he was trying to bait her into revealing that she was spying on him? You're right though it doesn't look like it had anything to do with his power.
|
# ¿ Jan 17, 2018 00:39 |
|
I, too, am getting really loving sick of Flos and can't wait for his dumb arc to be over with. Luckily, it looks like we only have one more chapter of him left. E: I will say, though, that this chapter was the best of the lot imo. It had good fight scenes, and the bit at the end where Trey suddenly realizes how monstrously lovely the world he's in is was good. Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jan 25, 2018 |
# ¿ Jan 25, 2018 03:24 |
|
Brewmaster posted:I just wanted to pop into this thread to say thank you for the recommendations. I finally finished reading Worm, it was really great. I've been reading it slowly, whenever I had downtime at work, for the last couple months. Now that I'm done I feel a little lost. I'm trying to decide on the next one to dive into. I'm thinking maybe The Gods are Bastards? There's a sequel to Worm being written right now, he just started arc 4. https://www.parahumans.net/ TGaB is great, apparently Twig (also by Wildbow) is also great. The Wandering Inn is good, but not quite on the level of those imo.
|
# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 17:42 |
|
I've been listening to the We've Got Worm podcast at work as sort of a recap between Ward updates, and it's really fuckin good. I'm learning so much minor detail that I missed in my three readthroughs of the book.
|
# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 23:32 |
|
The bit where he accidentally predicted that Taylor would at some point be able to control other capes around act 8 or 9 was kind of hilarious.
|
# ¿ Feb 2, 2018 05:43 |
|
The new Wandering Inn chapter is really crazy and good. I was initially disappointed we got a side story chapter right after finally getting back to Erin, but goddamn was it worth it. Regarding 'rationalist' fiction, keep in mind the people who write that schlock are the same weirdos that jack off to My Little Pony AI death cult fanfiction and Big Yud, and should be taken exactly as seriously as that would suggest. Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Feb 3, 2018 |
# ¿ Feb 3, 2018 04:26 |
|
|
# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 01:32 |
|
Objection: The Toren chapter was solid loving gold.
|
# ¿ Feb 3, 2018 20:44 |