Worm (web serial)
Worm is a self-published web serial by John C. "Wildbow" McCrae and the first installment of the Parahumans series, known for subverting and playing with common tropes and themes of superhero fiction. McCrae's first novel, Worm features a bullied teenage girl, Taylor Hebert, who develops the superpower to control worms, insects, arachnids and other simple lifeforms. Using a combination of ingenuity, idealism, and brutality, she struggles to do the right thing in a dark world filled with moral ambiguity. It is one of the most popular web serials on the internet, with a readership in the hundreds of thousands. A sequel, titled Ward, was published from November 2017 to May 2020.
Publication
Worm was first published as an online serial with two to three chapters released every week. It began online publishing in June 2011 and continued until November 2013, totaling 1,682,400 words.The story was written at a rate comparable to a traditional book being published every month. It followed a strict publication schedule, with new chapters released every Tuesday and Saturday, and bonus chapters on Thursdays as rewards for donations. These chapters were arranged into 31 arcs, each of which covered a specific series of events over six to twelve chapters and concluded with an interlude from the point of view of a side character. It maintains a very high level of readership which peaked at over 80,000 unique visitors in June 2015, nearly two years after completion.
Worm is currently being edited, and McCrae plans to produce both an eBook version and a physical book via traditional publishing. A fan-made audiobook project was launched in June 2014 and completed in June 2016.
Backstory
Setting
Worm is set in a fictional, alternate universe known as 'Earth Bet'. The events of Earth Bet closely follow that of our own Earth until a naked, golden man named 'Scion' appears over the ocean in 1982. Following his appearance, a fraction of humans gain superpowers if placed in a traumatic and stressful situation, known in-story as a "trigger event".The arrival of "parahumans" in 1982 leads to a "Golden Age of Heroism", during which the majority of people with powers work for the public good. In 1989, after a parahuman dies trying to prevent a riot, superpowered serial killers, thieves, cults, and gang members begin to increasingly threaten public safety. Governments worldwide create agencies to counter parahuman criminals, including the Parahuman Response Team, or 'PRT', in Canada and the United States.
In 1992, a giant monster launches a devastating attack on the Marun Field, Iran. To adequately prepare humanity for future attacks, and to manage the growing villain population, four prominent heroes form the Protectorate, an organization subordinate to the PRT dedicated to cooperation among superheroes. Two more monsters appear and begin attacking cities across the planet, causing the loss of millions of lives, as well as catastrophic and irreversible economic and geographic damage. The PRT and Protectorate are forced to treat villains more leniently in return for assistance in fighting Endbringers. Mired in bureaucracy and politics, the PRT is increasingly unable to cope with the growing frequency and brutality of parahuman crimes.
The story is set in the fictitious city of Brockton Bay, a formerly wealthy port that has severely declined after Endbringer attacks led to the collapse of the shipping industry. Due to the poverty of the area, it has a higher number of parahumans per capita than any other American city, and a number of superhuman-led gangs vie for control over the city's criminal enterprises.
Powers
Individuals who possess powers in Worm are referred to formally as "parahumans" and informally as "Capes", a term referencing the general habit of parahumans to establish an alter ego and go out in costume.In order to acquire a power in Worm, one must suffer a trigger event: a moment of severe physical or psychological trauma. The properties of the power are influenced by the nature of the threat the individual faces and the individual's thought process at the time. Some parahumans, when placed under extreme stress – perhaps even beyond that of their initial trigger event – can trigger a second time, expanding and refining their powers to increase their odds of survival. In rare cases, multiple individuals may suffer a simultaneous trigger event. Individuals who have spent multiple years around capes will, on occasion, trigger with a similar power. These individuals are generally referred to as "second generation capes" as many are children of previous parahumans, although powers are not strictly speaking heritable. The mechanics behind how powers work is gradually explained throughout the story.
Alternatively, powers can be acquired through Cauldron, a shadowy and secretive group which has discovered a method to artificially induce powers. This process carries a significant risk of deformation or mutilation, with the strength or safety of powers acquired varying greatly. Individuals whose Cauldron-acquired powers result in noticeable, sometimes grotesque mutation are referred to as "Case-53s" or "monster capes."
Powers in Worm obey several arbitrary constraints. All powers can be used aggressively, regardless of manifestation. Thus healers are incredibly rare and often have other abilities as well suited towards combat. Another limitation is the 'Manton effect': a parahuman's abilities very rarely affect both organic and inorganic material, and both themselves and others – i.e., a power may affect the landscape, but not the people within it.
Synopsis
Taylor Hebert is a parahuman who has developed the power to sense and control insects following a traumatic event. She lives in the fictional city of Brockton Bay, a hotspot of parahuman activity, and seeks to become a superhero. On her first night out in costume, she defeats a gang leader and is mistaken for a villain by a team of teenage parahuman thieves known as the Undersiders. Taylor infiltrates the team, hoping to learn the identity of their boss before turning them into the authorities. However, Taylor grows increasingly close to the villains and finds herself unable to betray them. She commits to the Undersiders, adopting the moniker "Skitter" and abandoning her dream of becoming a superhero. After a job, Taylor learns that the Undersiders unwittingly assisted their boss, Coil, in the kidnapping of Dinah, a girl with the ability to predict the future, and is racked with guilt.Brockton Bay experiences a period of instability, culminating in a devastating monster attack. At Coil's direction, the Undersiders seize territory and operate as makeshift warlords in the ruined city. Privately, Taylor plots to depose Coil if she cannot secure Dinah's release. When Jack Slash, leader of a notorious gang of parahuman serial killers, invades Brockton Bay, Dinah predicts he will bring about the end of the world in two years if not stopped. The city weathers the incursion, but its capes fail to kill Jack.
Coil, valuing Dinah's precognitive abilities too highly to consider her release, attempts to assassinate Taylor when she pushes the issue. She survives and the Undersiders kill Coil in retaliation, positioning themselves to fully take over Brockton Bay. At Dinah's counsel, Taylor surrenders to the authorities and joins the Protectorate as the probationary superhero "Weaver". She rises through the Protectorate's ranks over the next two years. When Dinah's deadline passes, Weaver and her allies go to war against Jack Slash to prevent apocalypse. They fail, and Jack convinces the world's most powerful hero, Scion, to kill billions in an interdimensional rampage. Taylor seizes control of the defending forces and ultimately defeats Scion at the cost of her sanity.
Themes
Hal Wierzbicki of entertainment site C0ws observed thatIf I had to identify a theme running through all of Worm, it’s Taylor wanting to make the world a better place, a safer place, for herself, her family and her friends. If I had to pick a second theme, it would be that those good intentions aren’t enough. Taylor seems to make the best decision at any possible moment, the decision that gets her out of a losing fight, the decision that saves the lives of her friends, the decision that wins a battle. Yet, in doing so, things just get worse.
Gavin Scott Williams suggested that the story contains an "undercurrent" of the idea that "sometimes you have to go outside the rules to do the right thing". Several authors have compared the story to Alan Moore's Watchmen, as well as the character of Spider-Man and his themes of responsibility, although McCrae has stated in interviews that no one author has heavily influenced him.
The title Worm has multiple potential meanings. It has been connected to the protagonist's character development, as a "lowly, overlooked" person who is nonetheless useful and dangerous; drawing a parallel with the protagonist's power to control worms and other bugs. The arc titles also generally have double meanings.
Several reviewers have described the serial as an exercise in repeatedly escalating the stakes of the story.
A number of reviewers have noted the characters' ingenuity, and the original and creative use of superpowers in the narrative. Author Adam Sherman described one of the recurring themes of the story as "that powers don’t really make the person, it's the person who makes the power". McCrae has described how he would regularly write himself into corners, so that "the desperate gambits we see are echoed by my writerly desperation to figure out a way to keep things going." G.S Williams drew a parallel between the protagonist's power being seemingly underwhelming, and her being overlooked in her civilian life, and the broader theme of things being overlooked.
Reception
Worm has received almost entirely favorable reviews. It received substantial attention following a favorable review by author Gavin Scott Williams roughly six months into publication, who praised the story's themes and originality. Readership doubled when it was recommended by author Eliezer Yudkowsky on his website while the story was in its final months.Critics favorably compared it to the similar-length book series A Song of Ice and Fire. Matt Freeman of Daly Planet Films praised the story's originality, noting that it works as a science fiction story to a degree not found in most works of superhero fiction. Media site Toolsandtoys.net published a review by Chris Gonzales, who described it as "one of my favorite stories ever written". However, he also noted that it was "dark", warning "definitely don’t hand this to a kid to read". Chris Ellis of Ergohacks.com noted that the story "managed to hit every single trigger warning we have listed", but called it "among the best books and universes I’ve ever read."
Reviewers have praised the story's realism and use of consequences, contrasting it favorably with the tendency for characters to return from the dead in superhero comic books and films. Many praised the story's originality and creative use of superpowers. Several reviewers commended the detail, consistency, and depth of the setting.
Several reviews praised the story as being highly addictive.
The story also possesses a sizable online fanbase. It receives 40–60 visitors a day from TV Tropes alone. Fans of the story have collaborated to create a complete audio book, as well as other projects, such as the We've Got Worm podcast, a weekly arc-by-arc podcast with a first-time reader and a Worm expert. Fan art relating to the novel has been published on DeviantArt, as well as a large amount of fan fiction. There is an IRC chatroom established for readers to comment and discuss the story, which is constantly active, as well as communities of fans on a number of online forums. Worm, along with McCrae's other completed works Pact, Twig, and the Worm sequel Ward, are consistently among the highest-rated works on ratings site TopWebFiction, and Worm is the highest-rated work on several websites that collect serial fiction. Worm has an average rating of 4.67 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, with over 3000 user rankings. Of these users, 99% liked the book.
Several publications have discussed Worm within the context of the increasing popularity of web serials, and compared to the work of authors such as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, who also wrote in the serial format. Authors Olivia Rising and Adam Sherman have credited it as a decisive influence on their work.
A number of companies have approached McCrae to discuss adapting Worm, as well as another of his serials, Twig. However, McCrae takes a pessimistic view of whether it will be successfully adapted.