Web Serials

[halfeye]

Web serials, there are a bunch, and I am sure I don't know most of them.

The ones I'm currently reading include, in no particular order:

The gods are bastards. Magic as tech, and tech as magic in a sort of semi cowboy world with multiple gods and lots of other critters. Updates twice week usually, but seems to have taken a week off.

Humanity **** Yeah. Space Opera. Updates once a month (on the last day, or the day before the last day, or something like that), but it's a big update.

Ward (parahumans two). Follows on from Worm, updates tuesdays and saturdays.

A Practical Guide to Evil. Magic as magic, with moral dilemmas agogo.

Metaworld Chronicles. Magic as magic again, but different. Lot's more magical beasties than in APGtE.

The Wandering Inn. Magic as magic, sort of, there are levels and skills and stuff. Quite twee, except that when the author says it's not Game of Thrones, he's half kidding, there are lots of character deaths, which makes it suspenseful.


I read all the way through:

Worm (parahumans one) Lots and lots of different superpowers, and a story too.

Pact. Magic and devils and hell, and a story.

Twig. lots of zombie slaves, and some superpowered kids, and adults.

The sun knight (I forgot the title, that's who it was mainly about). Bizzzare, allegedly translated from Chinese, so knights aren't exactly european knights.


Anyone like any of these, hate any of these? (we have a current thread for A Practical Guiide to Evil, so I know some people like that).

[uncool]

One that I haven't seen people talk about much:

Interviewing Leather (finished and short), its sequel, The Kitten House Rules (finished and mid-length), and the current work, Interviewing Trey (unfinished, long, and with very sparse updates). Main character is a reporter/H. S. Thompson wannabe sent to interview the less-knowns of the capes: supervillains and rogues. Its core strength is in the humanist aspects (as you would expect from a reporter-based story): every character has a backstory and a way of thinking, and no character is simply right (or simply anything). In that, it's a lot like Worm; however, it's much more upbeat (not in a HFY sense, but in a "Things will be alright" sense).

Main site (with links to the Interviews) is here:
https://banter-latte.com/

I found it hard to find the Cheshire Kittens stuff, so a specific link for it is here:
https://banter-latte.com/tag/cheshire-kittens/

[paddyfool]

I've rather enjoyed Mother Of Learning... which somehow manages to make a fantasy timeloop into a good story. Started in 2011, final installment anticipated later this year https://m.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning

[Ibrinar]

An incomplete list of what I read/have read:

Gods are bastards
Mother of learning
The zombie knight (seems to be on hiatus, is a modern world (though not ours) with people empowered by reapers with basically super powers)
Worm
wandering inn
Vacant Throne( multi world setting though we only see two, angels still do their jobs based some books that basically foretell what happens or maybe should happen, but the being sitting on the big throne apparently is long gone. An angle taking care of another world (who is trying hard to make her book wrong) takes a day off to visit our world and accidentally tips our MC off that she is about to be murdered. (Because the MC for some reason can see her.) So she doesn't get murdered and instead kills her attacker. So the angel abducts the MC to the angels world to not draw attention. )

from royal road:
deeper darker:
undermind: MC becomes a troll in another world
forge of destiny: xianxia seems pretty good.
street cultivation: A xianxia world that has developed to a similiar point as our, just a bit different because it is a world with cultivation. Interesting setting.
There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns.: dungeon core story with a peaceful dungeon, enoyable
Though the Heavens Should Fall: xianxia but not far enough to say much.
Threadbare and in the same setting Small Medium
Super Minion: shapechanging experiment created as weapon gains human intelligence, escapes and hides as normal super powered person. Setting where people triggering to get powers or mutate is relatively common.
Eight God Engine: urban fantasy basically. Liked it, though it is still missing the last chapter(s) of book 1.

[Astral Avenger]

I've rather enjoyed Mother Of Learning... which somehow manages to make a fantasy timeloop into a good story. Started in 2011, final installment anticipated later this year https://m.fictionpress.com/s/2961893...er-of-Learning

I've really enjoyed Mother of Learning too!

Main one that I enjoyed that I haven't seen here is Symbiote by farmerbob1. As he described it:

It’s something of an exploration into human/machine singularity or transhumanism. I explore my own ideas about how a moderately-educated individual would react to sharing a body and headspace with an advanced AI, and how they might grow together.

I also explore how society might react to rapid expansion of transhumans, though I will admit that many of the reactions are probably overboard. I needed conflict from somewhere.

[Ibrinar]

About the gods are bastard, the latest chapter https://tiraas.net/2019/09/23/15-70/ reminds me of aspects I don't like about it and I got kinda tired of the story reading it. (and I came close to eye rolling ^^) Maybe it will get better when Elilial acts normally again.

@Astral Avenger: Symbiote sounds potentially interesting, I will give it a try.

[Sapphire Guard]

Tried to read several of those never stuck the course.

Read about half of worm, gave up because the plot armour of the leads was too thick.

Tried practical guide and wandering inn, didn't stay with them for long.

Zombie Knight was interesting enough, still didn't keep up too long.

[uncool]

Tried to read several of those never stuck the course.

Read about half of worm, gave up because the plot armour of the leads was too thick.

The plot armor may not have been as thick as you think.

Spoiler: minor spoiler

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Wildbow explicitly rolled dice to see who lived and died - including Taylor herself.

Spoiler: major spoiler

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And even then, the in-universe plot armor that gets them through Bakuda's fight gets taken away pretty quickly.

I agree that the number of survivors was surprisingly high for that;

Spoiler: major spoiler

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the first Undersider death taking place as late as New Delhi is a bit surprising.

[Sapphire Guard]

Was that for the final battle? I didn't get that far, gave up around

Spoiler

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Coil or the slaughterhouse 9, whichever was later.

[uncool]

Was that for the final battle? I didn't get that far, gave up around

Spoiler

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Coil or the slaughterhouse 9, whichever was later.

Spoiler: Response to Sapphire Guard's spoiler

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Can you name a specific event? Both of those were spread out for a decent length.

Spoiler: Chapter 8

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The dice were explicitly for Leviathan; Wildbow had plans for a protagonist switch if Taylor died to the dice.

Links for backup that contain further spoilers (if you read beyond the specific linked posts).
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.co...7#post-2729359
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.co...7#post-2729872
The dice did continue:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.co...7#post-2729988

[uncool]

For those reading The Gods Are Bastards:

Spoiler

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Is it just me, or are the last couple sections a complete and utter anticlimax, beyond the extent that seems appropriate given Elilial's "con"?

This is supposed to be the goddamn goddess of cunning, dreaded and feared the world over, who overthrew an elder god and commands her own dimension, throwing away an army of resources, ceasing some hostilities, and revealing her plans? She could have accomplished everything she got just by calling whatever passes for a press conference. Hell, that's almost directly what she did, since her "surrender" was kinda spoiled by her demonstration that she could just leave whenever she wanted, no matter what the mortals she was surrendering to wanted.

"It's called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine." Elilial hasn't given anyone her confidence, and especially not the mortals she's supposedly surrendering to, who were all-but-absent when she surrendered. So...meh?

[Rynjin]

I'm not quite current (about 6-8 chapters behind? Whenever Toby does the thing he did recently is the last chapter I read) so I only read the first sentence or so of that, but TGAB's author has always been really good at setup...and equally bad at payoff. There are so many literal or near-literal Deus ex Machinas in every book it's practically the series' defining feature.

[halfeye]

Eventually the group soon reached their destination -

Luckily that's a rarity, but sometimes language like that happens.

[gomipile]

I found Fine Structure to be quite good:

https://qntm.org/structure

[Lethologica]

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries counts as a web serial, right? It's quite good. As the name implies, it's a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice.

[halfeye]

I am current on Mother of Learning:

The last page seems to carry a copyright date of 2011, is it really still updating? It certainly stops in the middle of the action, but is there really any likelyhood of an update after eight years?

[uncool]

I am current on Mother of Learning:

The last page seems to carry a copyright date of 2011, is it really still updating? It certainly stops in the middle of the action, but is there really any likelyhood of an update after eight years?

The last chapter was uploaded this month, not 2011.

[halfeye]

The last chapter was uploaded this month, not 2011.

Okay, that's good. I still think it's strange that the only date is 2011.

[Ibrinar]

On fictionpress? That is the creation date for the story, nothing to do with a specific chapter. The info at the top is the same on all. Look at updated for last update date. (or look at the royalroad version to have dates for each chapter)

[paddyfool]

One issue I have with a lot of these is just how long and bloated they are. The Gods are Bastards took, what, 7 books to cover one year?

[halfeye]

I read Symbiote. It wasn't utterly terrible, but it seems to be finished now, and as the guy wrote in the afterword, the there was a lot of power-bloat going on.

[Rynjin]

One issue I have with a lot of these is just how long and bloated they are. The Gods are Bastards took, what, 7 books to cover one year?

Ehhh, 'book' is misleading. Not only are they of variable length (those 7 books are the equivalent in length of 2-3 actual novels, IIRC), but web serials are not really books in the traditional sense. They can be more accurately compared to a webcomic or even an ongoing print comic or manga series in format; updated weekly in fairly short bursts of content with no set endpoint in mind.

I ran up against this difference pretty starkly when writing my own, when I got to the end of a book and realized I had written it as the END to a book, meaning I had to make a decision as to whether I would continue as if nothing happened the next week into a 'book 2' which was more a continuation of the first, or take a bit of time to ensure the next book is also a complete novel (which is what I decided on).

[halfeye]

I read Fine Structure.

Seemed like Nova Express with a plot.

Relatively short.

[Tvtyrant]

I just finished Pact, and I think Wildbow has Stephen King issues. There is so much anticipation built up that the ending fails to feel satisfying.

[Rynjin]

I just finished Pact, and I think Wildbow has Stephen King issues. There is so much anticipation built up that the ending fails to feel satisfying.

Pact is weeeeak.

[Tvtyrant]

Pact is weeeeak.

There were lots of things I liked about it, but Wildbow seems to do this thing where he/she smooshes a ton of action scenes at the end in a way which just kind of stops making sense. It slides from frantic to exhausting, and then the conclusion is overshadowed by being part of this endless action sequence.

Honestly as far as magic systems go, Pact had a pretty okay one. The best one is Nen from Hunter X Hunter, but Pact beats most urban fantasy by having explanations for most things.

[Rynjin]

Pact suffers from Wibbles severely burning out by the time Conquest shows up, and after that it's just a never-ending spiral of bad things happening to characters that aren't well fleshed out enough for me to care about.

Twig is MUCH better, because at least it's bad things happening to Wildbow's by far best written characters.

[Tvtyrant]

Pact suffers from Wibbles severely burning out by the time Conquest shows up, and after that it's just a never-ending spiral of bad things happening to characters that aren't well fleshed out enough for me to care about.

Twig is MUCH better, because at least it's bad things happening to Wildbow's by far best written characters.

Wibbles?

The best characters were Blake, Evan and Green Eyes. They essentially ditched his old friends after the house gets destroyed in favor of that triangle, and I felt like they should have kept them and stopped trying to rehook the story to the Rose/Blake dynamic.

Twig is the next one, now that I am done with Worm and Pact. So far Wildbow is 2/2 at main characters, 0/2 at endings.

[Rynjin]

Wibbles?

A well documented nickname for everybody's favorite pig-themed web serial author.

[Dragonus45]

I just finished Pact, and I think Wildbow has Stephen King issues. There is so much anticipation built up that the ending fails to feel satisfying.

Pact was certainly his weakest work but I’m surprised to hear you didn’t like the ending. I think it’s probably his best one.