Recommendations and request for web serials
From what I have seen discussions here seem mostly about published books but I had figured I will try posting here and see if anyone is interested. They have both positives and negatives compared to published/or even just completed fiction but mostly I am interested in them for the higher variance which also means that it is harder to find something good.
Just listing some I liked over the years, both more and less known:
-
The Gods are bastards by DD Webb (on hiatus, extremely long) - set in a world in a magical industrial revolution where adventuring as career is all but over it follows a class of students in the University. Contains several other viewpoint characters and ever expanding cast.
-
Fall of Doc Future trilogy(and extras) by WD Rieder (on hiatus, very long) - a story about superhumans where the abilities and their effects are treated seriously. Contains some social commentary and several polyamorous relationships in later parts.
-
Time to Orbit: Unknown by Derin Edala (ongoing, long) - a psychological mystery/horror set on a colony ship. A colonist wakes five years early to find that the crew is missing and things are wrong. The mysteries so far constantly escalate but in way that mostly makes sense. The culture of this future is detailed and interesting.
-
Mother of Learning by nobody103 (complete, extremely long) - a time loop progression fantasy following Zorian - a student mage from a minor merchant family.
-
This Used to be About Dungeons by Alexander Wales (complete except epilogues, very/extremely long) - a slice of slice comfy story(at the beginning it slightly escalates later) containing extremely light litrpg elements. Focuses on the group dynamics of a party going to dungeons(sometimes).
What are some good ones that you would recommend?
Worm, by a million miles. It's 7,000 pages, but I read it in like a month. It was absolutely an amazing month. Wish I could go back to knowing nothing about it and reading it again.
My spouse and I have been reading this while in the car (the passenger reads out loud). It’s crazy how good it is, it’s criminally underrated.
It's hardly underrated, it's probably the most popular web serial out there by a significant margin. Some mediums are just going to be less popular than others.
I just wanted to let you know that I can’t put my phone down anymore, I even read this while I have to walk somewhere. But I’m also glad that the story has ended and I won’t have to wait until a new chapter is going to be published.
Nice, hope you enjoy all 7000 pages!
Thanks for the recommendation. I started reading it today and already finished the part called gestation.
I only wish I could read it with dark mode and have an an easier time to get back to the exact spot I left the last time I was reading without having to add a bookmark.
If you have an eReader, you can download it with this: https://github.com/domenic/worm-scraper
Thanks for the recommendation, I will try to use this tool. I am wondering though what the Worm’s author think about people scraping his website like this? Are they ok with it or it’s best to support the author by reading on the website?
Update. I actually found the answers to my questions in the FAQ section of their website.
It's falls slightly outside the generes you have listed so far. But from time to time I like picking up the wandering inn. https://wanderinginn.com/
It's really long at this point and still on going.
Worm was my introduction to web serials and is still my favorite. It just works for me in a way most other stories don’t. I read it over the course of a week in 2013 — for reference, it’s 1.7 million words so it pulled me in hard — and it’s occupied a portion of my brain ever since.
The only thing I put on the same level as it is Katalepsis. Katalepsis is an eldritch horror/urban fantasy story story that is extremely cool and has the distinction of an almost-entirely female, almost-entirely lesbian cast, which I love it for.
I will heartily recommend both. They’re utterly fantastic.
I’ll also throw out Pale, an urban fantasy story by the same author as Worm. I’m woefully behind, but people I trust who are up to date say it’s the author’s best work yet. As I understand it, Pale is longer than Worm and Katalepsis combined.
Edit:
Oh, also Unsong! It’s by the author of Slatestar Codex, if that means anything to you. God is real, His names have power, and capitalism has made an industry of trying to figure out what they are and patent them. Also the world is ending and the main character loves puns. It’s a fun ride. Much shorter than anything I’ve listed above.