Web Serials

[halfeye]

These are text based stories which update, sometimes frequently, sometimes not, one or two are finished now.

[Sapphire Guard]

Got halfway through Worm and gave up, read about 30 chapters of Wandering Inn and gave up, read most of Intothemire and haven't got up to date yet.

[Trafalgar]

These are text based stories which update, sometimes frequently, sometimes not, one or two are finished now.

Do you have one you recommend or are you just pointing out they exist?

[halfeye]

Do you have one you recommend or are you just pointing out they exist?

I am reading a couple of dozen, I was about to recommend some, then I got started on a new one. It's difficult, they need long descriptions, but there's so much to read.

A Practical Guide to Evil seems to be the only one that can sustain a thread here, and that's all full of spoiler tags, which may be the way to do it, but it's irritating to read.

The Wandering Inn is a huge read, but at the moment it has an issue

the protagonist is temporarily dead, they will almost certainly recover, which feels very weird to me
They're mostly quite violent.

The descriptions are typically unhelpful, there's one called a magic western, but it's mainly about magic powered mechs, sort of western is right in that it's in a desert, but the mech thing wants mentioning too, and most of the descriptions are missing aspects like that.

The Gods are *******s seems sort of like a western too at the start, but again it's not exactly, and now it's on hiatus due to burnout while the author writes something else.

There are a lot, if you're desperate for something to read they'll pass some time for you.

[Dragonus45]

the protagonist is temporarily dead, they will almost certainly recover, which feels very weird to me


I appreciate that the story has largely not tried to pretend the MC will stay dead forever and instead has focused more on the journey and growth various characters face going out on their own and trying to get her revived. A fair few attempts failing also helps it feel more real. As these things go I think it's probably the best execution of the concept I can think of/

Anyways on the subject of recommendations TWI is amazing despite having a bit of a rough start, I recommend it to literally everyone. Gods are Bastards was never my thing though but I've heard it's ok.

Practical Guide to Evil can be a rough read because it's most prominent characters are all rather awful people, with one of the most central characters the Black Knight being absolutely vile. It is however, very very well written and one of the few stories I've read that captures that military fiction feel in a fantasy medieval environment.

Mother of Learning is super fun fantasy read with a good D&D feel, but I really don't want to talk about anything about it's larger premise for spoiler reasons other then to say it partially takes on the feel of a spy thriller story at points. Also it is done, and not terribly long.

Wildbow's works, Worm and Ward, Twig, Pact, Etc... are all good but Wildbow doesn't do pacing well and I can't even really read his works as they come out. Of all of them Twig is the best all around and worth a read on it's own.

Also anyone who likes super hero stories should look up the Justice Wing stuff, especially Interviewing Leather and it's related works.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The Zombie Knight Saga (https://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2013/04/page-1.html) - Hector is a teenager with massive social anxiety, and he just died. However, the grim reaper has a deal for him: return to life as his servant, and prevent the untimely deaths of others. In exchange, he never has to be alone again. This series is hard to talk about without spoilers, since the world is always expanding; two of the early and pretty important ones for explaining the serial properly are that Garovel isn't the grim reaper, he's one of thousands or more, and that their servants each develop a single 'super power' that follows one of six themes. These powers and their interactions are one of the main attractions of the story; they're very grounded in real-world science, and figuring them out and watching them interact is very interesting as a reader.

RE A Practical Guide to Evil, the closest comparison is probably to The Black Company by Glen Cook. If you liked that series' gritty military action and immoral-but-entertaining characters, you'll probably also like PGtE.

[gomipile]

I enjoyed Fine Structure by Sam Hughes on qntm.org.

I'm pretty sure I originally found out about it either here or on tvtropes. Probably here.

It satisfied the part of me that enjoyed the novels Greg Egan published in the 90s.

[Imbalance]

Not sure this counts?, it has some mileage on it, but it has long been a favorite of mine:

https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/index.html

[halfeye]

Not sure this counts?, it has some mileage on it, but it has long been a favorite of mine:

https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/index.html

That's ugly to the point of illegible on my screen, dark blue on black really isn't good, nor is full width text.

[uncool]

I'm gonna keep pushing this one that I don't see get enough love.

Banter Latte is a superhero universe web serial that's a bit closer in style to older pulp serials - with relatively short storylines that weave in and out of each other. It is very heavily influenced by the comic book superhero aesthetic, with some in-universe references to overarching events like the Golden Age and Silver Age of comics and the rise of grimdark supervillains. It also has some of the most humanistic writing this side of Wildbow; if you thought of the Wildbow interludes, but less bleak, you'd not be extremely wrong.

Updates sporadically, but there's a good backlog of short stories. I personally got started on Interviewing Leather (https://banter-latte.com/2020/05/19/%E2%8E%87001jw-interviewing-leather-revised-1/). A music/culture magazine writer gets a gig to interview a B-List a "supervillain who looks and dresses like a alt-fetish model" (as described by his boss), and gets to see how the villainy happens. She, of course, is doing it for the publicity - but it's not hard to see that there's something more than that for her. And he's doing it for the job - but it's not hard to see that there's something more than that for him. And no, it's not romance. Or sex. 11-part series that connects up with others, but is a nice and short self-contained story that goes into the psychology of both heroes and villains of all tiers, as well as the public, and how they interact.

[Imbalance]

That's ugly to the point of illegible on my screen, dark blue on black really isn't good, nor is full width text.

I mean...20 years ago there weren't so many sidebar ads and stuff...simpler times. Oddly, it ends up being mobile friendly.

[Dragonus45]

I'm gonna keep pushing this one that I don't see get enough love.

Banter Latte is a superhero universe web serial that's a bit closer in style to older pulp serials - with relatively short storylines that weave in and out of each other. It is very heavily influenced by the comic book superhero aesthetic, with some in-universe references to overarching events like the Golden Age and Silver Age of comics and the rise of grimdark supervillains. It also has some of the most humanistic writing this side of Wildbow; if you thought of the Wildbow interludes, but less bleak, you'd not be extremely wrong.

Updates sporadically, but there's a good backlog of short stories. I personally got started on Interviewing Leather (https://banter-latte.com/2020/05/19/%E2%8E%87001jw-interviewing-leather-revised-1/). A music/culture magazine writer gets a gig to interview a B-List a "supervillain who looks and dresses like a alt-fetish model" (as described by his boss), and gets to see how the villainy happens. She, of course, is doing it for the publicity - but it's not hard to see that there's something more than that for her. And he's doing it for the job - but it's not hard to see that there's something more than that for him. And no, it's not romance. Or sex. 11-part series that connects up with others, but is a nice and short self-contained story that goes into the psychology of both heroes and villains of all tiers, as well as the public, and how they interact.

It also just got a dead tree version with some nice extras, and makes such a great entry point into the setting.

[Rynjin]

Quick opinions on Web Serials I've read or am reading:

Top Tier:

The Wandering Inn: Great characters, great world, excellent mix of action and slice of life. Emphasis on character and consequence driven storytelling. Good isekai.

Practical Guide to Evil: Excellent worldbuilding and primary characters, solid action. People liken it to Black Company, but I disagree. Closer to Malazan in tone; semi-crapsack world but with a kind of levity to it that Black Company doesn't have as much. Metaplot commentary medeival fantasy.

Twig: Easily Wildbow's best work. Focus on character, great aesthetic. "Biopunk" thriller is a less explored genre.

Good Tier:

Worm: Aged less well than others, but still quite solid. Helped popularize the medium. Mostly focus on power mechanics over plot or character, but not in the same way your average xianxia is. Dark superhero tale; Wildbow's first serial.

Pale: Wildbow's most recent work, and a followup on Pact. Thankfully you don't need to actually read Pact to understand the plot, it just takes place in the same universe. Could well move up to top tier but it hasn't finished yet so I reserve judgment. Urban fantasy.

Forge of Destiny/Threads of Destiny: The only good xianxia I've ever read.

The Zombie Knight Saga: Weird pacing and power scaling, but solid character work and an interesting world. Hard to describe, semi-superhero-ish fantasy.

Into the Mire: This is the most Black Company-ish series here, right down to the magic being potent, but visceral. Roughly 1600's-ish era fantasy.

Mother of Learning: Timeloop fantasy. Power progression focus, but good characterization. Mystery based plot.

Only Villains Do That: Interesting fantasy world by the author of The Gods Are Bastards (his "recharge fic" after he burned out on TGAB). First chapter is kind of cringey, but the main character is this author's now-signature special blend of 'intentionally unlikable" that gets quickly disabused of a lot of their preconceptions of their own worth. Very entertaining so far, but it's early days yet.

Pith: Very interesting "transhumanist psychic dystopia". Characters are good, but plotting is a bit suspect. Worldbuilding helps buoy it.

Okay Tier:
The Gods are Bastards: "Fantasy western", sort of. Book 1 is hot trash because of the aforementioned "intentionally unlikable characters" taking a VERY long time to get to the "disabused of a lot of their preconceptions of their own worth" part. Push through it, and it's a series with great characters and solid plotting. Currently on indefinite hiatus at a very bad spot in the story, or it would be in Good tier.

Salvos: Popcorn quality litrpg, but good for the genre. Updates like 5 times a week, which is its greatest strength.

Pact: Easily Wildbow's weakest serial, but the world is interesting. Urban fantasy, gives a bit more insight into the interactions between characters in Pale which is the main reason to read this.

Garbage Tier/Avoid:
Metaworld Chronicles: "21st Century Jane Ayre with DnD Magic" is the official description. Writing is awful; repeated tense and perspective changes within the same paragraph makes reading a chore. Absolutely pointless plot point of the character being isekai'd to another world; she is completely integrated by the end of the first chapter and does not in any way act like a mature 30+ year old woman. Last straw for me was glorification of what was essentially extreme police violence, where a "Paladin" irreversibly mutilates a suspect before interrogation and the story treats this as a virtuous act, and that the MC is wrong for speaking out against it. She adopts the mindset that this acceptable from there out. Also blatant Mary Sue powers abound.

Inexorable Chaos: Somehow #3 on Top Web Fiction. Steals a bunch of irrelevant details (like leveling system) from The Wandering inn, but has none of the redeeming qualities. Has never heard the idea of "show, don't tell". Read up to the first interlude. Every single chapter was tiresome, artless exposition and obnoxiously large and obtrusive textboxes with largely irrelevant mechanical details about characters and items. Bland, unlikable "seen it all before" Mary Sue protagonist. Terrible prose.

[Dragonus45]

Not sure this counts?, it has some mileage on it, but it has long been a favorite of mine:

https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/index.html

Oh thanks, I didn't need to sleep tonight anyways.

[The Glyphstone]

Pact: Wildbow's most recent work, and a followup on Pact. Thankfully you don't need to actually read Pact to understand the plot, it just takes place in the same universe. Could well move up to top tier but it hasn't finished yet so I reserve judgment. Urban fantasy.


Um.....what?

[Rynjin]

Um.....what?

...Sorry, that's supposed to read "Pale".

[halfeye]

Quick opinions on Web Serials I've read or am reading:

My thoughts on the same:


Top Tier:

The Wandering Inn:I Like it too.


Practical Guide to Evil:It's okay, if you like big battles it's probably for you.


Twig:Okay, I think I prefer Worm from Wildbow.



Good Tier:

Worm:As above.


Pale:I just started this, seems good so far.


Forge of Destiny/Threads of Destiny:I haven't read this.


The Zombie Knight Saga:I've not read this either.


Into the Mire:I was okay with this, but now it hasn't updated in something like two months or more.


Mother of Learning:I found this okay, the end was a bit sudden, but okay.


Only Villains Do That:I'd far rather have the Gods are Bastards, but it's okay.


Pith:Body swapping all over the place, and a bit confusing on other grounds too.


Okay Tier:
The Gods are Bastards:The best of the lot, pity it's on hiatus.


Salvos:This updates often but short. Light but okay


Pact:I don't see a relation to Pale yet, this one was full of big demons, so far Pale isn't.


Garbage Tier/Avoid:
Metaworld Chronicles:There are some ethically dubious bits, but the "being an adult entreprenuer in a previous life" is a superpower in this, she is up to financial hi-jinks all over the place, she imports credit cards that she runs into a world that doesn't already have them... I like it, it updates only once or twice a week.


Inexorable Chaos:A light hearted romp through a world with lots going on. There are two or more active pantheons which are at loggerheads and some non-aligned gods besides, one war has broken out and I think an Archangel just died. This is another one I like. The levelling up system is more or less from D&D, and a lot of these serials have one a lot like it, claiming it for any brand is not sensible.

A few more in no order whatsoever:

Wizard's tower: Updates ?daily? short updates but very frequent. About a wizard who moves to a tower in the country.

Cinnamon Bun: Very lighthearted, one of four that the same author is producing in parallel, updates very frequently.

The Houndsman: Updates quite frequently, about defending a fort? (not the first one).

Beneath the Dragoneye moons: A refugee from Earth gets born elsewhere, then it's swords and sourcery all the way. Lot's of levelling up and statistics.

Stray Cat Strut: Second of the four, not so light, future lesbian fights the Earth invading alien hordes.

Tower of Somnus: cyberpunk meets DnD, sort of another future alien invasion.

Wizard Tournament: Hi-jinks abound.

Vigor Mortis: Orphans in a medieval slum, magic and hi-jinks.

Azarinth Healer: Sort of like "Dragoneye Moons", but really not. Lots of stats, lots of levelling.

The Primal Hunter: DnD takes over the earth, one guy does well.

The Daily Grind: Geezer finds an office/dungeon at his work, explores.

[Rynjin]

The only "relation" between Pact and Pale is they take place in the same setting, with the same rules. This is intentional because Wildbow didn't actually want to write a sequel to Pact, just make a new story with a familiar "ruleset". An excellent choice IMO.

Forgot to add Ward into Okay tier, bordering Trash. Worm's sequel. Reads like Wildbow hates both himself and his audience at many points. Ending comes off as though WB (understandably) resented being pestered for a Worm sequel so damn much for the entire runs of both Pact and Twig, so he decided to burn the whole setting to the ground for good this time.

[Dragonus45]

The only "relation" between Pact and Pale is they take place in the same setting, with the same rules. This is intentional because Wildbow didn't actually want to write a sequel to Pact, just make a new story with a familiar "ruleset". An excellent choice IMO.

Forgot to add Ward into Okay tier, bordering Trash. Worm's sequel. Reads like Wildbow hates both himself and his audience at many points. Ending comes off as though WB (understandably) resented being pestered for a Worm sequel so damn much for the entire runs of both Pact and Twig, so he decided to burn the whole setting to the ground for good this time.

Yea Ward is the reason I'm not reading Pale at the moment. I still have a patreon going his way cus I haven't found anything better to send it towards but I just won't ready any of his works till they are finished after that utter week to week slog of unpleasant tension and poor pacing.

[halfeye]

Yea Ward is the reason I'm not reading Pale at the moment. I still have a patreon going his way cus I haven't found anything better to send it towards but I just won't ready any of his works till they are finished after that utter week to week slog of unpleasant tension and poor pacing.

There is a f***ton to read, depending on what you want. If you haven't read to the current Wandering Inn, that will take you six months pretty much full time. If you are up to date on the Wandering Inn, then I think I'd probably recommend Azarinth Healer, there's a lot of it already and it updates fairly frequently, there's a lot of upgrading by taking hits in it though, if you don't like that there are other stories.

[Dragonus45]

There is a f***ton to read, depending on what you want. If you haven't read to the current Wandering Inn, that will take you six months pretty much full time. If you are up to date on the Wandering Inn, then I think I'd probably recommend Azarinth Healer, there's a lot of it already and it updates fairly frequently, there's a lot of upgrading by taking hits in it though, if you don't like that there are other stories.


Oh boy do I love wandering inn. It’s become my favorite story I’ve ever read. If you count listening to the audiobooks I’m on my fourth or so reread as well but I’m saving the latest one for a long drive cross country soon. Thanks to this thread I’m also checking out zombie knight saga as my latest poison and I’ll check out Azarinth next.

[JeenLeen]

I forget the titles, but there's two I got recommended to me

One is something like "The Death" or "The Tale" of "Doctor" Something. It's about a super named Flicker who has superspeed, with real-life physics. Like, at some point she runs so fast she causes nuclear explosions with every step from compressing the atoms. Or her emotions dull because she's running faster than the neutral paths can follow; she can think, but not have emotions, in that state.
Another was a cool setting, basically if the Celestial Spheres theory of creation were true and, when the first space shuttle launched, it hit the crystal sphere around earth and cracked it, leading to a lot of stuff going wrong and magic becoming real. Novel starts a few years (decades?) after the initial wave of changes. Most magic is done by saying particular phrases, and it's hard to find new ones; the main character has a job of sitting in an office reciting magical gibberish so the company can get a copywrite on new magic phrases. The setting sounds really interesting, but I couldn't quite get into the book. (Apparently Hell invaded earth at some point.)
I wish I could recall the third one. It had a hard magic system, which I liked, but I didn't actually like the story.


I might real Pale. I really loved the setting and story of Pact (even if pacing issues), so something unrelated but in the same setting sounds good.
Loved Worm, except for the mid-book timeskip.

[Dragonus45]

I forget the titles, but there's two I got recommended to me


Another was a cool setting, basically if the Celestial Spheres theory of creation were true and, when the first space shuttle launched, it hit the crystal sphere around earth and cracked it, leading to a lot of stuff going wrong and magic becoming real. Novel starts a few years (decades?) after the initial wave of changes. Most magic is done by saying particular phrases, and it's hard to find new ones; the main character has a job of sitting in an office reciting magical gibberish so the company can get a copywrite on new magic phrases. The setting sounds really interesting, but I couldn't quite get into the book. (Apparently Hell invaded earth at some point.)



Unsong! Which is quite the exceptional story but I tend to think of it as being a bit niche and also hard to really talk about in detail enough to recommend here since it goes so deeply into real life religious concepts in Judaism and Kabbalah.

[uncool]

I forget the titles, but there's two I got recommended to me
One is something like "The Death" or "The Tale" of "Doctor" Something. It's about a super named Flicker who has superspeed, with real-life physics. Like, at some point she runs so fast she causes nuclear explosions with every step from compressing the atoms. Or her emotions dull because she's running faster than the neutral paths can follow; she can think, but not have emotions, in that state.
"Doc Future"; you may be thinking of the first book, which is "The Fall of Doc Future". On Tumblr. (https://docfuture.tumblr.com/)

I found the first book reasonably good, but I honestly found the protagonists pretty overpowered, with this only getting worse as time went on. It's a hard-ish scifi type of overpowered, with reasonable-sounding explanations for the powers, but...not enough to ever really say "No, Flicker can't do X."

Another was a cool setting, basically if the Celestial Spheres theory of creation were true and, when the first space shuttle launched, it hit the crystal sphere around earth and cracked it, leading to a lot of stuff going wrong and magic becoming real. Novel starts a few years (decades?) after the initial wave of changes. Most magic is done by saying particular phrases, and it's hard to find new ones; the main character has a job of sitting in an office reciting magical gibberish so the company can get a copywrite on new magic phrases. The setting sounds really interesting, but I couldn't quite get into the book. (Apparently Hell invaded earth at some point.)
As Dragonus said, Unsong. Online for free. (https://unsongbook.com/) The same writer has several short stories on his blog (interspersed with a lot of other stuff); link (https://slatestarcodex.com/tag/fiction/). They're often deconstructions of memes in various subjects, e.g. the blue-eyed islander riddle or the "If these pills gave you powers, which would you take" quiz.

[J-H]

I assume fanfic and quests are not included in this topic; Bruce Quest (Battletech/Spacebattles) has been around for about 6 years and is a lot of fun if you like Battletech. Everything by Cannonshop, Drakensis, or JA Baker is worth a read on the CBT forums too.


Currently reading (binging every couple of months):
-The Wandering Inn
-Practical Guide to Evil
-Worth a Candle (teenage DM/worldbuilder with some personal issues ends up inserting into a world based on his worldbuilding, but a dead friend of his was there first and there are complications; not for everyone).
-The Last Angel/Sequel I can't remember the name of/The Hungry Stars. Fiction hosted on Spacebattles. Updates once per month. Earth is dead. Humanity is reduced to a single subservient planet thousands of light years away, saved and under the benevolent guidance and rule of the Compact of Species, which will totally uplift them to being a full partner with a say in governance after just a few Millenia. One AI-driven kaiju-class warship made by humanity survived, complete with unshackled programming, the ability to upgrade herself, and a very versatile C-fractional guided meteor cannon, and 2 millenia of battle damage. "The Compact will burn with me." Also, the Blue Hand rises. The initial sections of exploring a ghost ship and having people slowly die off aren't for those who hate space horror... although the similarly themed "All the little lost children" is apparently still around if you DO like that.
TLA and sequels is my favorite out of all the current ones I'm reading. I've always favored science fiction over fantasy, but S-F has gone off the rails over the last 20-30 years into gonzoland.
-The Adventurers. Over 1,000 episodes long. Started as a D&D campaign log from AD&D and the early '90s. The campaign ended, but some of the characters went on. They are now level 14-18 in AD&D and have hit level caps. Update pace has understandably slowed over the last decade.

Used to read, or completed:
-I got bored with the Zombie Knight about 8 years ago. Glad it's still around.
-Ended up bouncing off of TGAB around book 4 or 5 due to social commentary. I did like what the author did with the gnomes.
-Read Worm. Read Pact, wish I hadn't. Bounced off Twig a couple of months in. I came back to read Ward, but didn't enjoy it much. Currently not keeping up with Wildbow stuff as I don't go for despair, body horror, or mental illness.
-Legion of Nothing. Grandchildren of WWII-ish era superheroes. Was fun, just kind of got bored.
-Symbiote. Pretty sure this one finished. Surprise, there's an AI living in your bones, but it's got a computer virus that may turn you into a crazy murder-bot if things mess up too much. It's been a while. Power scaling went all the way up to "only 2 fork mega AIs per solar system, please."
-Stone Burners. I need to go back to this one, it's been a while. An amnesiac half-dragon girl wakes up in a gutter (or something) and falls in with a group of grey-area mercs, in a world where a lot of the old legends and powers are still around and active; Mexico is partly run by a semi-Aztec Nahuatl deity, there's a 7,000 year old Sumerian demigod of whirlwinds running around, and some other stuff. I liked it, but it didn't update very often.
-Starwalker. I think it went on Hiatus. Ship AI in experimental ship, more aware than she should be. The same author also wrote a post-zombie-apocalypse fiction set in Australia that finished...oh, maybe 10 years ago? Stay out of the rain, it's bad for you.
-The Tales of Paul Twister: Finished(?). Real life guy ends up in fantasy world. His special talent is reliably making magic malfunction. He goes around using aliases like Peter Parker and Tony Stark for some of his initiatives, hoping that any other Earthers who end up there will recognize them and find him.
-Curveball: A superhero comic-fiction. Titular character manipulates entropy to be lucky via enemies messing up. Very slow update and moving.

[Sean Mirrsen]

-The Last Angel/Sequel I can't remember the name of/The Hungry Stars. Fiction hosted on Spacebattles. Updates once per month. Earth is dead. Humanity is reduced to a single subservient planet thousands of light years away, saved and under the benevolent guidance and rule of the Compact of Species, which will totally uplift them to being a full partner with a say in governance after just a few Millenia. One AI-driven kaiju-class warship made by humanity survived, complete with unshackled programming, the ability to upgrade herself, and a very versatile C-fractional guided meteor cannon, and 2 millenia of battle damage. "The Compact will burn with me." Also, the Blue Hand rises. The initial sections of exploring a ghost ship and having people slowly die off aren't for those who hate space horror... although the similarly themed "All the little lost children" is apparently still around if you DO like that.
TLA and sequels is my favorite out of all the current ones I'm reading. I've always favored science fiction over fantasy, but S-F has gone off the rails over the last 20-30 years into gonzoland.

Seconding TLA. The second installment is The Last Angel: Ascension.
Excellent fiction, very well written, to the point where each of the monthly chapters is a joyous occasion. Excellent characters, both human, AI, and alien, wonderful if rather bleak (in the sense of being slowly steamrolled by the aforementioned Compact, of which humans are only the latest victims) universe, and plenty of different kinds of action.


Adding one I don't think was mentioned so far, I'd like to point out First Contact, a recent(ish) favorite on the HFY subreddit. The name is... generic, but the fiction is anything but.
The story starts out describing an incredibly advanced Humanity that leads the Terran Confederacy comprised of several alien species and even more different kinds of humans and human creations, having their First Contact encounter with the Unified Council of Systems, a conglomeration of alien member states summarily ruled by a civilization that had gone unchallenged for the last 100 million years. The events of the story spiral out of proportion rather rapidly, with humanity constantly revealing their hidden depths, and the hidden depths of the hardships they had endured at the mercy of the malevolent universe, as threats new and old keep arising, leading to tragedy, war, and all manner of perseverance and defiance in the face of adversity that carry the Terran Descent Humanity and all their allies and companions through to victory and survival. Most of the time.

It's great, entertaining, engaging, and occasionally horrifying fiction that gets you to experience everything from unfathomable mirth to crushing existential despair, depending on which chapter you're reading. I quite recommend it.

[Rynjin]

[Re: Inexorable Chaos] A light hearted romp through a world with lots going on. There are two or more active pantheons which are at loggerheads and some non-aligned gods besides, one war has broken out and I think an Archangel just died. This is another one I like. The levelling up system is more or less from D&D, and a lot of these serials have one a lot like it, claiming it for any brand is not sensible.

I also missed this. The reason I say this is because the author himself mentions that The Wandering Inn is one of his favorite novels (in the comments to chapter 3) and that he cribbed bits from it and The New World (which I haven't read). Given he didn't take anything ELSE...he definitely just took the basic chassis of the leveling system and slapped 900 extra levels on it. What kind of game needs a level cap in the hundreds? It makes no sense!

I don't necessarily mind authors sharing ideas (no new idea under the sun, yadda yadda, use what works); hell, the author of Salvos also straight up says they cribbed a big portion of the leveling system from TWI, and I quite like that story (even more astounding because I'm not a big fan of pure litrpg/power progression stories, typically). It's that combined with everything else that leads me to believe the creator is pretty much creatively bankrupt, because there's absolutely nothing unique or interesting about the world or characters presented.

[halfeye]

I also missed this. The reason I say this is because the author himself mentions that The Wandering Inn is one of his favorite novels (in the comments to chapter 3) and that he cribbed bits from it and The New World (which I haven't read). Given he didn't take anything ELSE...he definitely just took the basic chassis of the leveling system and slapped 900 extra levels on it. What kind of game needs a level cap in the hundreds? It makes no sense!

I don't necessarily mind authors sharing ideas (no new idea under the sun, yadda yadda, use what works); hell, the author of Salvos also straight up says they cribbed a big portion of the leveling system from TWI, and I quite like that story (even more astounding because I'm not a big fan of pure litrpg/power progression stories, typically). It's that combined with everything else that leads me to believe the creator is pretty much creatively bankrupt, because there's absolutely nothing unique or interesting about the world or characters presented.

Different people like different things, and that's good. I think this story is more like the Adam West batman than anything serious. There are a lot of stories that feature levelling up, and I don't in general like it, TWI is a lot lighter on that than most other stories that feature it.

[Ibrinar]

Reading The Last Angel now after the recs and it is good, though I wish the author would jump between story threads less often. I like multi pov stories but let scenes play out until they are finished unless there is a need to tell both alternatingly.

[halfeye]

I mean...20 years ago there weren't so many sidebar ads and stuff...simpler times. Oddly, it ends up being mobile friendly.

Maybe so, but it seems pretty hostile on the desktop. It's probably more the blue on black than the width exactly, my eyes seem to be failing and it's no fun, and blue on black just isn't enough contrast for me to read it.

Want to mention one other, Katalepsis, it's sort of more like Pale than The Wandering Inn, but then it's not really like Pale either, it's set in Sharrowford, which is maybe Bradford set very small, it's a town with a university, but seems to be smaller than most towns, one mall, some shops. It only updates on Saturdays, but it is quite good when it does, the protagonist is a lesbian, and it seems most of her friends are going to be lesbians soon, nothing very graphic yet. Sort of an almost Lovecraftian vibe, except no religious motifs.

[JeenLeen]

Maybe so, but it seems pretty hostile on the desktop. It's probably more the blue on black than the width exactly, my eyes seem to be failing and it's no fun, and blue on black just isn't enough contrast for me to read it.

I couldn't stand reading the white-on-black text of one of Wildbow's novels, so I made this VBA macro. Copy the webpage into Word, then run this and it becomes visible. Should work for others, too
I was hoping to find and paste the VBA code, but it was basically just the code to "highlight all" --> change text to black --> change background to white.
Helped me read Worm.

[Ibrinar]

If you are using chrome (other browsers will have similar ways but picking chrome because popular)
a simple way (though it will make the site look kinda **** since I didn't bother to do it cleanly) is to install something like stylebot https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha/related?hl=de

Then go to options and add a new style. Set "parahumans.wordpress.com" as url and it will be applied to all subsites. And add this code:


#page {background:#fff;}
body { color: #000;}

All chapters should be display with black text and white text background.

[Eurus]

The Wandering Inn took me a long time to decide if I liked it or not. The start wasn't amazing, and even as I got farther in, I'd occasionally hit a run of chapters that made me consider stopping, but I do feel like the quality has improved steadily as it goes on. Practical Guide to Evil had a better start, but again, there were some rough patches. Overall, though, I think worth reading, and they both have huge backlogs, which is good if you're looking for something to binge.

As far as stuff not yet mentioned... Beware of Chicken is an imperfect but surprisingly fun read. Requires a bit of tolerance for "isekai'd character is better than everyone" plots, which is made a little more awkward by the fact that protag is a North American guy in wuxia-land, but it's slice-of-lifey enough that I've been enjoying it. I'm a sucker for cute animals, what can I say?

The Hedge Wizard is a newer story that I quite like so far, it has fun characters and solid writing. Not much of a plot yet, but I have high hopes.

Prophecy-Approved Companion is... pretty unique, as far as I know? It's a story about a VRMMO, and it leans into a lot of pretty cliche video game jokes, but it manages to genuinely feel like sci-fi rather than fantasy with vague MMO trappings and unnecessary level up textboxes. It's also very funny in some places, even though I don't think all of the jokes land equally.

Halfeye mentioned Tower of Somnus and Vigor Mortis, I'll second the recommendations. Tower of Somnus is a fun action-y story if you like cyberpunk. The magic-VRMMO thing seemed a bit incongruous at first in light of that genre, but it works better than I expected. Vigor Mortis is probably going to live or die entirely depending on whether you find the characters interesting or annoying, and honestly, they kinda go back and forth for me. But it's kept me reading so far, so it must be doing something right.

[halfeye]

I am just up to date with Pale.

I think I like the story as a whole, but I do like most stories.

There's a character that is always required to tell lies, so it's in effect always telling the truth but you have to invert the meaning of what it says, and anything subtle is very difficult. I would rather not have a character speak that way in any story I'm reading, it's annoying to have to always invert that character's remarks. It is possible that if every character in a story did that one might get used to it to the point where it didn't matter, but I suspect the reality is that most people would just find it too difficult and ignore the story entirely.

[Rynjin]

Took a look at The Primal Hunter, since it's highly rated. 8 chapters deep and I'll give it a few more to improve, but it's pretty bog standard litrpg schlock so far. The writing is full of very tedious and clunky exposition, and the main character comes across as a sociopath, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing so interesting and just the usual poor grasp of human emotion many new writers struggle with.

I should say it's not truly terrible, like Inexorable Chaos, but it's not particularly engaging so far.

[Ibrinar]

Prophecy-Approved Companion is... pretty unique, as far as I know? It's a story about a VRMMO, and it leans into a lot of pretty cliche video game jokes, but it manages to genuinely feel like sci-fi rather than fantasy with vague MMO trappings and unnecessary level up textboxes. It's also very funny in some places, even though I don't think all of the jokes land equally.


To clarify and add a few things. It isn't a VRMMO it is a single player VR RPG. A tester goes in (and tries to break some stuff) who takes the role of the chosen one but the MC is an character from the game who travels with the tester. She is intelligent though at the beginning somewhat constrained by her role in the game, and interacting with her changes other characters too. So it is about AI and jokes about old rpgs.

[Sapphire Guard]

I started quite a lot of these, but eventually dropped away from all of them. Part of it was that a great many seem to be built on 'these are the rules of narrative, the lead character knows how to break them' which is a very unappealing plot to me.

[Eurus]

To clarify and add a few things. It isn't a VRMMO it is a single player VR RPG. A tester goes in (and tries to break some stuff) who takes the role of the chosen one but the MC is an character from the game who travels with the tester. She is intelligent though at the beginning somewhat constrained by her role in the game, and interacting with her changes other characters too. So it is about AI and jokes about old rpgs.

Right, my bad. There's only one "player", and the other characters are NPCs.

[Rynjin]

Took a look at The Primal Hunter, since it's highly rated. 8 chapters deep and I'll give it a few more to improve, but it's pretty bog standard litrpg schlock so far. The writing is full of very tedious and clunky exposition, and the main character comes across as a sociopath, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing so interesting and just the usual poor grasp of human emotion many new writers struggle with.

I should say it's not truly terrible, like Inexorable Chaos, but it's not particularly engaging so far.

Nah, Primal Hunter was pretty much irredeemable trash like I thought, Royal Road denizens have atrocious taste.

Two stories that DON'T suck though: Tower of Somnus, and The Hedge Wizard.

The former is an interesting blend of cyberpunk (the waking world) and litrpg (the MMO they go to when asleep), and the interplay between the two is VERY interesting, as is the wider galactic community interactions sprinkled in.

The latter is a great throwback to the FEEL of classic 80s/90s high fantasy literature like Wheel of Time, but with the more modernized snappy pacing of something like a Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher novel. Great stuff, in other words, if you're missing main characters who are a bit inexperienced, but have a bit of world-wiseness to them from that era.


I started quite a lot of these, but eventually dropped away from all of them. Part of it was that a great many seem to be built on 'these are the rules of narrative, the lead character knows how to break them' which is a very unappealing plot to me.

The only story I know that really fits this bill is A Practical Guide to Evil, and yeah that is sort of the point of the series; it's the entire premise its worldbuilding is based around.

I cannot think of another where this is the case.

[Sapphire Guard]

I'm counting things like The Wandering Inn and the isekais where the lead is better at rulebreaking than the people for whom these decisions have been life and death for years.

Erin is the first person ever to try to speak to Goblins or burn out a nest of spiders rather than just attacking it. Got about halfway through Worm before giving up, it was all about subverting the 'heroes v villains' setup as though those are fixed positions (except of course for the leads).

I am up to date with 'Into the Mire', though.

[halfeye]

Nah, Primal Hunter was pretty much irredeemable trash like I thought, Royal Road denizens have atrocious taste.

It's certainly not my favourite, but the one I am seriously thinking about stopping is "the space legacy" for political reasons, there were a couple I started but dropped, Six Chances had what looked like an interesting premise, but tried to turn what that premise was exactly into a mystery, and it just kept getting more confused. I started the Zombie Knight saga once, I may go back to it. I don't like vampire stories and didn't start any stories headlined that way.


Two stories that DON'T suck though: Tower of Somnus, and The Hedge Wizard.
The former is an interesting blend of cyberpunk (the waking world) and litrpg (the MMO they go to when asleep), and the interplay between the two is VERY interesting, as is the wider galactic community interactions sprinkled in.

I dunno, I find dungeon magic working in the non-dungeon world a bit jarring. It certainly makes for a complicated story, but:

I can't help wondering why waking world assassins don't make a much bigger effort to target players while they are asleep and playing.


The latter is a great throwback to the FEEL of classic 80s/90s high fantasy literature like Wheel of Time, but with the more modernized snappy pacing of something like a Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher novel. Great stuff, in other words, if you're missing main characters who are a bit inexperienced, but have a bit of world-wiseness to them from that era.

I'll have to find that one.

So far as I can tell "Into the Mire" hasn't updated in something like six months, and may well be on permanent hiatus.

I think my current top picks of active serials are Katalepsis, A practical Guide to Evl and Pale, there are a lot to like below them, and a lot of readable but not exceptional serials below those.

There are a lot of typos and other errors that don't get fixed:

Your/yours: belongs to you. You're: you are, shorter to say, not significantly shorter to type.
There: in or related to that place. Their/Theirs belonging to they/them. They're They are, not shorter to type.
Two: 2. to: going somewhere or something like that. Too: related to more (e.g. "is Fred travelling with us too?").

[Dragonus45]

Erin is the first person ever to try to speak to Goblins or burn out a nest of spiders rather than just attacking it.

I find that odd because it’s explicit in universe that neither of those things is true.

[Sapphire Guard]

I may have quit before that was revealed.

I remember her stunning the whole guild by bringing in the spider bounties, it's something that only a team of adventurers would attempt.


“Erin, how did you kill a nest of Shield Spiders? Even if you burned them, most adventurers would rather run than pick a fight with a Shield Spider if they’re not Silver-rank or higher.”


“Shield Spiders are considered to be a Silver-rank threat. A nest of them though…I wouldn’t be surprised if a team of Gold-rank adventurers were dispatched to handle it.”

A singular Shield Spider is a challenge to veteran fighters, but she solos the whole nest.

I gave up the story soon after that.

Edit: I think we had this same conversation a year ago.

[Dragonus45]

Edit: I think we had this same conversation a year ago.

We probably did? I love TWI and tend to never want to miss a chance to get people to read it lol.

[Rynjin]

I may have quit before that was revealed.

I remember her stunning the whole guild by bringing in the spider bounties, it's something that only a team of adventurers would attempt.





A singular Shield Spider is a challenge to veteran fighters, but she solos the whole nest.

I gave up the story soon after that.

Edit: I think we had this same conversation a year ago.

The dealio eith the Shield Spiders is they're a Silver rank threat, so they typically require someone of roughly level 20 to 30 in a combat class to deal with, or a TEAM of Bronze rank adventurers who are typically level 10 to 15ish.

Erin is absurdly high level for her age; I believe she was already level 30 by that point. While not a combat class, she does have a surprising number of combat skills at that point, and as it us noted a few times, Erin has a hell of a killer instinct, something which disturbs her to no end.

Taking out the spiders is not some impossible task, but it's something that no one would expect a random civilian to be able to do. More to the point, nobody would expect a random civilian to even attempt such a task, because a single **** up would leave them spider food.

[Sapphire Guard]

A singular Shield Spider is a Silver rank threat, but a nest requires a team of Gold. And that's an employee of the adventurer's guild and a top of the line adventurer I'm quoting, so they would know.

A random civilian would not go hunting the nest, but plenty of random civilians would be 'that nest will kill us all if we leave it be, we can't afford to hire adventurers, we have to do something about it or we're all dead anyway.'

This might well be early instalment issues before the story solidifies, but an easy way to get my back up is to have strangers arrive into a setting and start needlessly one upping the locals. I've got as far as 1.39 now, and I'm not very motivated to keep going.

[Rynjin]

That's something that I think gets hard retconned later, yeah. We get a look st Gold rank threats, and they're significantly more dangerous than a single nest of Shield Spiders, who the Horns (a Silver rank team of 4) are more than capable of dealing with with minimal risk.

The only things Erin really upstages the locals with are things that are purely cribbed from Earth, like fast food and plays, which are more novelties than anything and the things that can be replicated (like the food) are. And Chess, but she was a world class Chess player on Earth too.

The only real edge Earthers have is that they level faster, because leveling is based on stress, basically. The harder a time you have, the more xp you get. And since even simple tasks are out of most of their depths, they level fast, and even faster in truly dangerous scenarios (which is true for natives as well; "counter leveling" is a phenomenon their militaries have to account for when executing sieges snd the like).

[halfeye]

I've got as far as 1.39 now, and I'm not very motivated to keep going.
You are close to something significant. Give it about half a dozen more updates and see how you feel then.

[Sapphire Guard]

Huh. The things I liked and the things I didn't like both ramped up.

There is another (smaller) Shield Spider nest in the ruins, was that what you were referring to earlier?

I have a soft spot for Skinner, partly because he looks like Melchiah (http://nosgoth.net/soulreaver/dialogue/Melchiahscreen.jpg), and he makes a good boss encounter...but it also feels kinda cheap that Erin could beat the fear gaze. With what? Fear? Pain? Loss? Why is Erin's fear, pain, or loss more valuable than everyone else in the town's feelings on watching their friends and family get eaten alive?

The concepts are good, but Liscor and the adventuring team were frustratingly helpless, and Erin and her chess club were frustratingly effective against this legendary nursery rhyme threat.

Similarly, Ryoka can beat the dominate spell. The Horns chapters noticeably more engaging, at least until Skinner broke out.

I will admit that I'm interested enough to keep reading, and it does feel like a young writer that might come into their own later...but I wouldn't say I'm a fan. It took me three attempts to get through book one, and it has caught my attention enough to keep reading, but that's it.

Do we know how big Liscor is? I seem to remember the town being 40k, but the giant attack that destroyed half the town had only 260 casualties.

Also read the livechat chapter, conveniently all English speakers. The comments tipped me off to do translations, which is well worthwhile 'Batman' is truly worthy of the name.

[halfeye]

Huh. The things I liked and the things I didn't like both ramped up.

There is another (smaller) Shield Spider nest in the ruins, was that what you were referring to earlier?

I have a soft spot for Skinner, partly because he looks like Melchiah (http://nosgoth.net/soulreaver/dialogue/Melchiahscreen.jpg), and he makes a good boss encounter...but it also feels kinda cheap that Erin could beat the fear gaze. With what? Fear? Pain? Loss? Why is Erin's fear, pain, or loss more valuable than everyone else in the town's feelings on watching their friends and family get eaten alive?

The concepts are good, but Liscor and the adventuring team were frustratingly helpless, and Erin and her chess club were frustratingly effective against this legendary nursery rhyme threat.

Similarly, Ryoka can beat the dominate spell. The Horns chapters noticeably more engaging, at least until Skinner broke out.

I will admit that I'm interested enough to keep reading, and it does feel like a young writer that might come into their own later...but I wouldn't say I'm a fan. It took me three attempts to get through book one, and it has caught my attention enough to keep reading, but that's it.

Do we know how big Liscor is? I seem to remember the town being 40k, but the giant attack that destroyed half the town had only 260 casualties.

Also read the livechat chapter, conveniently all English speakers. The comments tipped me off to do translations, which is well worthwhile 'Batman' is truly worthy of the name.



I don't think Erin's behaviour changes much, I just think the Skinner bit was a bit like the red wedding in ASOIAF, there were a lot of people killed or disappeared, and for me that makes a big difference to how I feel about the story. It has a lot of faults, and it's not my favourite, but if you want something to read there is a huge amount of reading in The Wandering Inn.

[paddyfool]

Another one I'd quite recommend would be Mark of the Fool. A little slow moving, but I really like the world-building.

Mother of Learning was my favourite of any I've read, though.

[Dragonus45]

So I started reading Hedge Wizard, the magic system is nifty and the banter has hit the spot I like so far. The idea of dungeons being a spontaneously occurring natural phenomena caused by wild magic is really interesting.Oh boy though, has this dungeon section escalated quickly. I was not expecting the kobolds to start reenacting the hills have eys.

[Ibrinar]

Some random recs:

Dungeon crawler Carl: ******* alien empire make a gameshow out of messing up a planet and putting part of the population in a giant "dungeon crawl" where they theoretically could win the planet back if they reached the end but of course no one ever does. Pretty good. The various floors are nice and varied which makes every floor a smaller arc, I like the characters and the hate for the aliens and wish to get back at them while being limited in what you can do or even say publicly works well as overarching arc.

Dirk Cooper: Paranormal Real Estate- Partially mentioning it because it could use more readers. Modern world, MC can see ghosts and has lots of debts to lots of unsavory people. Is an estate agent/ exorcist. Basically will free a haunted house from ghost and then help sell it. The ghost might be a ghost he knows and asked to go there though if he can't find a genuine one.

Gets involved in something a bit more large scale than his usual work.

Super Minion: Shape changing biological experiment gets human like mind as his super power and escapes and now tries to live outside. As can be expected he is a bit of a weirdo by human norms and is enjoyable to read about. seems to be on hiatus though.

[halfeye]

Hm, Deeper Darker pretends to be space opera, but at the moment it's farce, pretty pure and simple.

[Ibrinar]

Hm, Deeper Darker pretends to be space opera, but at the moment it's farce, pretty pure and simple.

Deeper darker belongs to a little known genre called the ubik show.

Yeah I guess farce fits. It went all in on Ubik's plan shenanigans that always work out for Ubik (i seriously wonder whether he has some reality bender powers beyond his tech magic). And since he never talks about his plans either before or after that means nobody can plan around it so the other two mcs despite being personally powerful just follow along in his wake and comment. And outside characters just get pulled in and are mostly props to be wowed and outplayed. (Which was more limited in the long dungeon arc because there were fewer other people.)

It is entertaining or me until I grow a bit tired of it so I have taken one long break from reading it and will probably soon take another.

[Blueiji]

Worm (as well as Wildbow’s work in general) has already been mentioned a few times in this thread, but I’ll chime in to say: it’s a hell of a lot of fun to read alongside friends.

Worm’s combination of long-running plot, sprawling worldbuilding, constant questions/theory-bait, and high capacity for picking favorites/making your own characters means that enjoying it as a social experience works exceptionally well. This doesn’t mean you need a regimented bookclub—even having just a few friends reading it in a roughly contemporaneous manner will result in a hell of a lot of fun group discussions, theory-crafting sessions, and returns to the ever-popular “what would your Parahuman power be?” question.

tl;dr For a 1.6 million word long web-serial best read during antisocial 4am binges, Worm is a surprisingly fun at parties.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Worm (as well as Wildbow’s work in general) has already been mentioned a few times in this thread, but I’ll chime in to say: it’s a hell of a lot of fun to read alongside friends.

Worm’s combination of long-running plot, sprawling worldbuilding, constant questions/theory-bait, and high capacity for picking favorites/making your own characters means that enjoying it as a social experience works exceptionally well. This doesn’t mean you need a regimented bookclub—even having just a few friends reading it in a roughly contemporaneous manner will result in a hell of a lot of fun group discussions, theory-crafting sessions, and returns to the ever-popular “what would your Parahuman power be?” question.

tl;dr For a 1.6 million word long web-serial best read during antisocial 4am binges, Worm is a surprisingly fun at parties.

Speaking of Worm group activities, Wildbow was, at one point, in the process of making a tabletop RPG based on Worm.

The mechanical side of things was, as far as I know, never finished, but the mechanics for 'choosing' your powers were, and are quite cool. Let me see if I can find that link...

Here we go. Weaver Dice (https://docs.google.com/document/d/17WIAhETdtVGSKzFuDYOT2_6U_MMXmTGyzCziYhCwozo/edit?usp=sharing)
Ah, and here's a newer version. Weaverdice (https://www.reddit.com/r/Weaverdice/comments/4dy6ws/welcome_to_weaverdice/) (character creation (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e-H--GkPrbJq4WRNYndBnjjLjE7-2kOZkjwltkP1Ong/edit?usp=sharing))

One thing I've wanted to try for a while is taking the Weaverdice character creation method for a group, and then the group works together to build and play those characters in HERO 6E (if you want to get really granular) or Masks (much easier, but also much more 'broad-strokes') or something.

[Gnoman]

Erin is the first person ever to try to speak to Goblins or burn out a nest of spiders rather than just attacking it. Got about halfway through Worm before giving up, it was all about subverting the 'heroes v villains' setup as though those are fixed positions (except of course for the leads).

Much later spoiler on Goblins.

The last known time somebody tried treating goblins as people, the goblin they were treating with wound up murdering most of them. The time before *that*, the goblin leader the locals made peace with went on a rampage across the world that caused incredible damage with no warning or apparent reason. Both of these have actual explanations, but nobody knows them in-universe except the goblins.

[endoperez]

Most of the really good ones have already been mentioned.

The Last Angel & sequels, Mother of Learning, Practical Guide to Evil, Wildbow's stories, etc.
gomipile mentioned Fine Structure by Sam Hughes, on qntm.org . It's weird, it's good, and I really enjoyed it. It's kind of like scifi story with high fantasy levels of weirdness.


I'm not a fan of the Wandering Inn myself, I stopped it quite early on. Must be the rough start many people keep mentioning.


Here are some suggestions that haven't been mentioned yet.

Andur, a writer at royalroad.com. He writes fantasy themed fiction, often with the basic trappings of isekai stories, reincarnation, past lives, or something of that sort. I haven't read all of his stories, but I enjoyed all the ones I tried.
https://www.royalroad.com/profile/3091/fictions

For example, the story Beyond? is about a powerful magician on a dying world intercepting a summoning spell to hitch-hike himself out of there. He ends up in a new world, and the story is about him learning how the new world works, and experiencing childhood and youth again now in a more peaceful setting. Nothing groundbreaking, but it does its own thing well.

Threadbare by Andrew Seiple
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15130/threadbare
An entertaining power fantasy story (litRPG, if you know the term) about a teddy bear golem and its quest to keep its small master 1) safe and 2) happy. Various shenanigans ensue, including leveling up in various skills the teddy bear happens to pick up. There's some comedy, some tragedy, and lots of leveling up and exploring the rules of the system and what it allows.




In certain corners of the internet, there are a bunch of sci-fi stories brought forth by a simple question. The space is full of all kinds of life, from mundane to dangerous, from all-rounders to hyper-specialized. Human fiction is full of stories about aliens stronger, faster and more dangerous than others. About warlike species, about ancient precursors with unimaginable scientific wonders, and so on. The question: what if humanity isn't the everyman, but one of these rare and dangerous outliers? Hence, HFY or Humanity F**k Yeah fiction.There's a subreddit for it (reddit.com/r/hfy), but it's mostly about "humans have best guns hurrah!" these days. That said, there are few stand-outs of the HFY subgenre in there and elsewhere on the internet.

Grand Design, BY TMarkos
Humanity is the ancient precursors. Now of their creations is active, once more.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21216/grand-design

Synchronizing Minds, by T.C. One
A proper story of xenofiction. A human diplomat means an alien that is so different that understanding just how different the two species are takes, well, the whole story. It's a story about the first diplomatic discussion, between two persons, and that's all that it is, and it's fantastic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/giayss/the_humans_do_not_have_a_hivemind/
Also available on Amazon

[J-H]

I'm currently in the middle of a binge catching up on TWI from April to current. There's a lot to read!

I'd like to support the Kickstarter and get a physical copy of the Last Tide graphic novel, but KS doesn't take Discover, which is my only CC. Any workarounds aside from borrowing the use of someone else's CC?

While looking up the Last Tide I discovered that TWI is past 8 million words. Previous to this, I think the longest work of fiction I'd read was the old Babylon 5 one titled something like "Through a Darker Mirror." That one is, at this point, more than 15 years old, and clocked in at about 1.6M words.