Worm

This serial needs a good edit and condense should it ever get published as eBooks (or even in print, the writing, characters and story are certainly good enough); I think we could lose around 20% of it to be honest. I'm still giving it 5 stars even though I stopped caring about back stories and skimmed a fair few of the interludes, it was just too amazing to dishonour with anything less than a five star. The plot was so complex I found myself losing track at points, or picking up on thing later than I should have,mostly because I wasn't paying as much detail as I would on something of shorter length (which is almost everything: as this book is ~1,750,00 words. For context The Wheel of Time is 4,410,036 words and A Song of Ice and Fire has 1,770,000 words as of this review. So yeah, long).

The ending though, I misunderstood a lot. Taylor, from whose perspective we see the end of the main arcs, narrates this in a very different (for want of a better way of describing it without spoilers) way, which makes complete sense narratively, although another interlude perspective from say, Tattertale would have been nice. Perhaps it was just the fact that it was 1am and I had slept that late for at least 3 nights in a row, whilst waking up at 7am (sorry body), in a frantic dash to finish it. That alone should speak for how good this serial is. Now that I've finished worm and I am no longer under the influence of whatever makes me single mindedly finish a book whilst giving me the physical ability to lose sleep and not be overly tired, I'll probably go back and read the interludes I missed and the two secondary arcs and enjoy them.

Similarly to how the last few proper chapters were hard to understand to my sleep-deprived mind, the “entity” interludes were confusing as fuck to my lucid waking mind. Perhaps the point, but a third of what was written in those interludes spread over more interludes would be easier to intake and process, whilst keeping that “this is beyond my understanding, but I kind of get the bigger picture” feeling.

Also a bit more exposition when Taylor joins the wards would have been nice. Felt like I lost touch with who Taylor was, who she has become.

Oh and the final ending for Taylor. yeah. I liked it a lot. Bitter-sweet; (for Taylor more than me in many ways) the best way to end anything imo. yes, taylor dying felt way less bittersweet for both me and Taylor than her surviving. Deaths at the end of books aren't my favourite way of ending things, even if some of my favourite books use it. Feels like an easy way out for the fictional characters and the writer in many ways.

This is a lot of complaining for a five star “book”, but looking at all the praise and 5 star reviews, all that needs to be said has been. When I write a review, it is mostly for my own sake; this is a place to get my thoughts, my likes and dislikes down, and to understand them before they fade from my mind. Worm is so good, I tend to pick out the bad and simply describe the rest as amazing.

Finally, my thanks and congratulations go to wildbow, for their dedication to this web serial and the enormous achievement that is competing it.
Also, here's the eBook version I read:
https://github.com/rhelsing/worm_scraper
Work great on kindle, no real problems, it formats chapter correctly, which is what usually doesn't work when I read stuff I haven't bought.