Web fiction is very popular in Japan and China. They love isekai and progression fantasy respectively, which is too bad because I think both of these are terminally dorky.
Luckily, Japan works on a system where new authors copy the basic setting of whatever's popular (makes it easy for readers to get into it) but then just switch to whatever they really wanted to write about. This gets you a lot of stories about a guy trapped in a video game written by someone who's clearly never played a video game, but then it ends up being about medieval stock market speculation (Spice and Wolf), or inventing giant robots, or incels getting a harem of women who agree with them all the time.
I recommend qntm's There Is No Antimimetics Division on the SCP wiki. It's by far the best SF I've read in the last 20 years and is getting published by a real agency this year.
Huge fan of Worm, highly recommend it. Taylor Hebert is one of my all time favorite characters in fiction, web serial or otherwise. Unsong is great too, if a bit niche. Practical Guide to Evil sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.
This is a great intro to something I also love. Appreciate this write up, especially as rhe introduction I got to this stuff was through "ratfic" which is sometimes good but often worse. I also love pgte and mother of learning, finally started worm and I'm devouring it. if you haven't read Worth the Candle, check it out. i think you would quite like it given the ones you've listed here
I started on Pale Lights, but haven't kept current with it. And you're correct that I was sticking to recommendations of mostly finished or lengthy works that I'm sure I can recommend.
Worm was my first web serial and shocked me with how good it was. I binged all of wildbow's other completed works--all were worthwhile. Buuut, I've been nervous about branching out and this was just the motivation I needed to try a new one. Thanks! I'll give Practical Guide a go-I'm similarly a classic sci-fi lover and your description was perfectly designed to reel me in.
Big fan of Wandering Inn, you will continuously be surprised that the story is moving so slowly - there must be a time skip somewhere - you figure. There is no time skip, it goes day by day. At first it's annoying, eventually you just learn to accept that this is going to be a long, loooong journey filled with minutia and powerful character moments since you are able to get to know each and every character so well in the vastness of its publication. I read it in 2 month and currently am a Patreon donor, PirateAba is one of the only authors who keeps up with my reading pace.
Related to web serials is one of the stranger things on the internet creativity wise, the SCP wiki. A serial (antimemetics) has been mentioned here, but the wiki is a bit more weird than that.
If you want something to sink your teeth into On Guard 43 (https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/on-guard-43-hub) is a great read, being a bunch of canadians dealing with an annual magical gunk explosion. The Breach goes on is closest to a classical web serial, though it is nearly a million words long.
On the other hand I thin Johnson will very much like the 8000 dead rats series (https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/8000-dead-rats-hub). As it is a highly political storyline about magical plague in the late 2040s. I do say this not just as someone who wrote extended neolib propaganda as part of the series. The rest of the From 120s Archive's canon are also generally great.
Though the wiki also does a large number of very well written one offs like SCP-8980, do do pay attention to the content warnings there.
Though the SCP wiki is its own unique writing space, due to its flexibility of the wiki format as well as the vote based quality control. Though the thing I have noticed more than anywhere else is the collaborative nature of the works there, as an example the 8000 dead rats series had 11 different writers involved, writing different sections.
Also because wikidot is the most insecure and abusable platform out there, there is a lot of playing around with the infinite canvas aspect. SCP-8817 is a fantastic example there.
(Bias disclosure I am a writer there and I help run the place)
Not sure if it is part of the same genre, but the one that got me into these kinds of stories was Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Still probably my favorite. Mother of Learning was absolutely excellent too. I enjoyed Worm but got fatigued probably halfway through. Hadn't heard of some of the others, but I'm definitely going to add them to my list!
Web fiction is very popular in Japan and China. They love isekai and progression fantasy respectively, which is too bad because I think both of these are terminally dorky.
Luckily, Japan works on a system where new authors copy the basic setting of whatever's popular (makes it easy for readers to get into it) but then just switch to whatever they really wanted to write about. This gets you a lot of stories about a guy trapped in a video game written by someone who's clearly never played a video game, but then it ends up being about medieval stock market speculation (Spice and Wolf), or inventing giant robots, or incels getting a harem of women who agree with them all the time.
I recommend qntm's There Is No Antimimetics Division on the SCP wiki. It's by far the best SF I've read in the last 20 years and is getting published by a real agency this year.
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub
It might be a little hard to follow if you don't know what SCP is, and even if you do it gets very silly at points but just bravely keeps going.
Huge fan of Worm, highly recommend it. Taylor Hebert is one of my all time favorite characters in fiction, web serial or otherwise. Unsong is great too, if a bit niche. Practical Guide to Evil sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.
This is a great intro to something I also love. Appreciate this write up, especially as rhe introduction I got to this stuff was through "ratfic" which is sometimes good but often worse. I also love pgte and mother of learning, finally started worm and I'm devouring it. if you haven't read Worth the Candle, check it out. i think you would quite like it given the ones you've listed here
oh and unsong is incredible of course. I feel it is somehow on another level from everything else
No Pale Lights? Though you seem to have stuck to completed works so that might be why. I’ve really liked it so far.
I started on Pale Lights, but haven't kept current with it. And you're correct that I was sticking to recommendations of mostly finished or lengthy works that I'm sure I can recommend.
Worm was my first web serial and shocked me with how good it was. I binged all of wildbow's other completed works--all were worthwhile. Buuut, I've been nervous about branching out and this was just the motivation I needed to try a new one. Thanks! I'll give Practical Guide a go-I'm similarly a classic sci-fi lover and your description was perfectly designed to reel me in.
Know I am late here, but The Last Angel is a personal guilty pleasure. Enjoyed the Practical Guide to Evil (though I wish Black had been in it more)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheLastAngel
Read this on your recommendation!! Excellent, thanks!
This is so cool I got into webcomics a few years ago and always wanted to dip my toe into web fiction. Thanks for the recommendations.
Big fan of Wandering Inn, you will continuously be surprised that the story is moving so slowly - there must be a time skip somewhere - you figure. There is no time skip, it goes day by day. At first it's annoying, eventually you just learn to accept that this is going to be a long, loooong journey filled with minutia and powerful character moments since you are able to get to know each and every character so well in the vastness of its publication. I read it in 2 month and currently am a Patreon donor, PirateAba is one of the only authors who keeps up with my reading pace.
7,000,000 words! That is like 100 novels, I think I will choose one of the other lol
Related to web serials is one of the stranger things on the internet creativity wise, the SCP wiki. A serial (antimemetics) has been mentioned here, but the wiki is a bit more weird than that.
If you want something to sink your teeth into On Guard 43 (https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/on-guard-43-hub) is a great read, being a bunch of canadians dealing with an annual magical gunk explosion. The Breach goes on is closest to a classical web serial, though it is nearly a million words long.
On the other hand I thin Johnson will very much like the 8000 dead rats series (https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/8000-dead-rats-hub). As it is a highly political storyline about magical plague in the late 2040s. I do say this not just as someone who wrote extended neolib propaganda as part of the series. The rest of the From 120s Archive's canon are also generally great.
Though the wiki also does a large number of very well written one offs like SCP-8980, do do pay attention to the content warnings there.
Though the SCP wiki is its own unique writing space, due to its flexibility of the wiki format as well as the vote based quality control. Though the thing I have noticed more than anywhere else is the collaborative nature of the works there, as an example the 8000 dead rats series had 11 different writers involved, writing different sections.
Also because wikidot is the most insecure and abusable platform out there, there is a lot of playing around with the infinite canvas aspect. SCP-8817 is a fantastic example there.
(Bias disclosure I am a writer there and I help run the place)
Really glad to see Worm there! And I'll check out Guide to Evil!
Not sure if it is part of the same genre, but the one that got me into these kinds of stories was Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Still probably my favorite. Mother of Learning was absolutely excellent too. I enjoyed Worm but got fatigued probably halfway through. Hadn't heard of some of the others, but I'm definitely going to add them to my list!