Another new segment you say? This time it’s literature. I’ve been an avid reader for most of my life but this has sadly tapered off in recent years, so how will I combat that? By giving myself more reason to check out books, reviews and overviews.

Today’s choice? Worm.

Worm is the first in a series of web-serials written by John C. McCrae A.K.A. Wildbow, and brings us into a world of super-powered “Parahumans” found over at: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ and is an emotional roller-coaster spanning 1.6 million words, and bringing a grittier, more adult take on the Superhero Genre.

Worm follows the story of Taylor Hebert, a super-powered “Parahuman”, following her experiences out in costume dealing with a world of Heroes, Villains, Rogues, and vicious & seemingly unstoppable “Endbringers”. This isn’t your standard superhero story though, as you will be thrown straight into a world full of conflict, death, destruction, and adult content. Wildbow pulls no punches with his use of language, and has built an incredible world, making you care about each of the characters you encounter in some way, whether you’re cheering them on, or hoping they fail.

The story was originally delivered in chapters several times a week on the site, and now has its very own sequel, the writing style clearly develops as you read, showing the fact that this incredible work was the first that Wilbow did, and you can see him coming to his own as an author. This launchpad was also the basis of 2 other unrelated works (See below and future reviews), and has built a huge and great community of followers.

Positives

World building: – This story takes place in a parallel earth, so it has a mix of real world locations and brand new cities and environments, and Wildbow masterfully blends the two as he builds from the base of Brockton Bay and expands this as the story progresses, populated with capes, civilians, and teams of all sizes and flavours.

Characters & relationships: – With a story of this size and the simply HUGE amount of characters the world brings out into the fold, it would be easy to have most of the cast appear as background characters, 2-dimensional and boring. But Wildbow makes sure you get to know little bits about the majority of his cast, through interludes to the main story you get chapters from the perspective of the supporting cast and how they are coping with the events unfolding. You grow attached to each and find yourself invested in the developments between teams and team members, you grow to love and hate characters then find those perspectives shifting as they show how incredibly human they are.

Powers: – Wildbow has create a staggering amount of variance with the powers and power sets as well as a unique and highly developed background for where they come from, how they evolve, and how people utilise these abilities. Yes you get the old favourites of flight, super strength, and laser beams. But you also get pyromancers, shapeshifters, control over bugs, telekinesis, amongst so many other things. On top of this, how each person uses their powers is unique and increases in versatility as the story unfolds and their experience increases, so much so that the community over at /r/parahumans is STILL trying to figure out some powers and how they can be used.

Investment: – Throughout you find your investment in the world and the story increasing, it will have you gripping your chair, swearing at your screen, and crying at your loved ones for mercy. Every time you feel you’re settled it will throw you 90 degrees to the left emotionally, and leaving you feeling raw and unsettled.

Negatives

Tempo shifts – A lot of the community agrees that at a certain point in the story, the tempo and pace shifts and leaves you on uncertain footing, all I can say from this is the following, once you find your feet it gets better again. Like the early chapters where Wildbow is trying to find his style and get the world set in his first attempt at writing on this scale, later in the story another hurdle appears in the form of one of the story arcs, this throws the reader around a little and while a strong arc it is jarring and then throws a similar style jolt straight after, leaving the reader wondering what is going on. Stick with it though, because it gets so much better once you’re through this and found your footing again.

Parting words

So that is my spoiler-free (really difficult to do) review of Worm. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments below. Be sure to check out his other works (to be reviewed as well), and even the community built tabletop RPG system (Spoilers included in the rules) “Weaver Dice”.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this and I look forward to writing more in future. So until next time, this is Hoolegr, signing off.