Worm: An anti-hero book that deserves your time
Worm is a web serial about a bullied teenager whose superpower is controlling bugs. That sentence may have already lost most of you, but for the ones it didn't, you are the audience for what I consider one of the best superhero fiction ever written.
On size: One author, known by username "Wildbow", posted chapters twice a week from June 2011 to November 2013 without missing a deadline, and the finished piece runs about 5 to 6 thousand pages. It's longer than the entire Harry Potter series, sitting on a WordPress site that still looks like 2011.
The story earns the pile (no spoilers). Taylor Hebert goes out on her first night wanting to be a hero, gets mistaken for a villain, and runs with it. The villains turn out to treat her better than anyone at school ever did. Through series of events, the story expands beyond what you could imagine. Powers ranging from "mind controlling bugs", "reality splitting", "darkness control", etc. Escalation is the whole engine of the thing.
Fair warning that it gets dark, considerably darker than the premise suggests, and it will eat your commutes and at least an entire weekend or two whole. The first arc is short, and it's the test. If Taylor's first night out doesn't grab you, you're excused.
Source: parahumans.wordpress.com
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