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 approximately 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...