Worm (web serial) [January 2019 to October 2019 to End Times]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

This is to be the longest-term Buddy Read for Worm. This monstrosity of a "book" is listed at 6680 7000 pages (top 5 editions), which is just an estimate made by the author of 1.7 million words / 250 words per page (sounds like a school homework definition to me).

You can find the web-serial here: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/

If you want to read on an ereader device, you'll need to do the work, making an ebook in Calibre, after putting all the text into a text document (author's way of cutting down on theft of IP, making it a bit harder to share)

If you'd prefer an audiobook, fans have made a 180hr podcast of the book (quality varies, I hear, but I'm going to try it)... you can get details on it, and where to find it with your preferred podcast app here: http://audioworm.rein-online.org/

If you prefer to speed your audiobooks up, the best solution seems to be to download it in iTunes/GooglePlay, and change the filetype from podcast to audiobook, like I did... I then broke the book into 5 sub-books...

WARNING: The whole series of 300 podcasts is 8.5GB, so some people might want to do this in smaller chunks... the 5 pieces I broke the book down into are Arcs 1-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-26, and 27-31... each chunk is 30-40hrs long, each arc is 5-13 chapters/podcasts long... there are 1-8 Interludes between arcs... and each arc is a novella to novel-length storyline... so while this is all listed as one book, it is actually easily digestible in smaller chunks...

Considering the length of the book, and varying reading speeds, I don't want to try and force a timeline on anyone, but just having somewhere to discuss this monstrosity should be great, and motivating... if anyone has any ideas, tho, feel free to share them...

Yanique and Elinor have already shown interest... everyone is welcome...

EDIT: I've started splitting the story into breakable larger story arcs, once you get past my mathy 1300-1500 page division post:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

:( Sorry Arkadeb >:D

I see you've been reading this all month... if someone ereads this in our Buddy Read, they'll earn ~120 points... as an audiobook reader, I'll earn ~95 points...

Some people probably won't even be able to finish the whole "book" within the timeline of the competition (sorry to single you out, Elinor, but 6700 pages IS alot)

Maybe you can break it up, and count the arcs you read... on audio, the reading speed averages out to 37pgs/hr, so I can estimate pages per chunk by looking at the length of each chunk...

Part I = Arc 01-10 = 37hrs = 1369 pages + 100 = 1469 pages
Part II = Arc 11-15 = 36hrs = 1332 pages + 50 = 1382 pages
Part III = Arc 16-20 = 35hrs = 1295 pages + 50 = 1345 pages
Part IV = Arc 21-26 = 40hrs = 1480 pages + 60 = 1540 pages
Part V = Arc 27-31 = 31hrs = 1147 pages + 57 missing pages + 60 = 1264

7000 - (1469 + 1382 + 1345 + 1540 + 1207 = 6943) = 57 missing pages

EDIT: Virginie pointed out that there is a 7000 page edition in the top 5... instead of doing all the math again, I just added 10 pages to Arcs 1-30, and 20 to the last arc... that adds in the missing 320 pages...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

(view spoiler)[Page count per arc, using similar math:

Arc 1: Gestation = 1.8 hrs = 67 pages + 10 = 77 pages
Arc 2: Insinuation = 2.33 hrs = 86 pages + 10 = 96 pages
Arc 3: Agitation = 3.25 hrs = 120 pages + 10 = 130 pages
Arc 4: Shell = 3.5 hrs = 129 pages + 10 = 139 pages
Arc 5: Hive = 3.67 hrs = 136 pages + 10 = 146 pages
Arc 6: Tangle = 4.33 hrs = 160 pages + 10 = 170 pages
Arc 7: Buzz = 5.25 hrs = 194 pages + 10 = 204 pages
Arc 8: Extermination = 5.5 hrs = 203 pages + 10 = 213 pages
Arc 9: Sentinel = 3.6 hrs = 133 pages + 10 = 143 pages
Arc 10: Parasite = 3.67 hrs = 136 pages + 10 + 5 = 151 pages

Part I = 1469 pages // Arcs 1-10 = 1464 pages // (5 missing pages, rounding error))

------------------------------------------------

Arc 11: Infestation = 8.5 hrs = 314 pages + 10 = 324 pages
Arc 12: Plague = 5.8 hrs = 214 pages + 10 = 224 pages
Arc 13: Snare = 5.75 hrs = 213 pages + 10 = 223 pages
Arc 14: Prey = 7.33 hrs = 271 pages + 10 = 281 pages
Arc 15: Colony = 8.5 hrs = 314 pages - 6 extra pages + 10 = 318 pages

Part II = 1382 pages // Arcs 11-15 = 1376 pages // (6 missing pages)

------------------------------------------------

Arc 16: Monarch = 10.16 hrs = 376 pages + 10 = 386 pages
Arc 17: Migration = 5.1 hrs = 189 pages + 10 = 199 pages
Arc 18: Queen = 8.5 hrs = 314 pages + 10 = 324 pages
Arc 19: Scourge = 7.2 hrs = 266 pages + 10 = 276 pages
Arc 20: Chrysalis = 4.5 hrs = 166 pages - 16 extra pages + 10 = 160 pages

Part III = 1345 pages // Arcs 16-20 = 1361 pages // (16 extra pages)

------------------------------------------------

Arc 21: Imago = 6.5 hrs = 240 pages + 10 = 250 pages
Arc 22: Cell = 6.5 hrs = 240 pages + 10 = 250 pages
Arc 23: Drone = 5 hrs = 185 pages + 10 = 195 pages
Arc 24: Crushed = 6.25 hrs = 231 pages + 10 = 241 pages
Arc 25: Scarab = 6 hrs = 222 pages + 10 = 232 pages
Arc 26: Sting = 10 hrs = 370 pages - 8 extra pages + 10 = 372 pages

Part IV = 1540 pages // Arcs 21-26 = 1548 // (8 extra pages)

------------------------------------------------

Arc 27: Extinction = 5.33 hrs = 197 pages + 10 = 207 pages
Arc 28: Cockroaches = 5.5 hrs = 204 pages + 10 = 214 pages
Arc 29: Venom = 8.6 hrs = 318 pages + 10 = 328 pages
Arc 30: Speck = 6.33 hrs = 234 pages + 10 = 244 pages
Arc 31: Teneral = 5 hrs = 185 pages + 66 missing pages + 20 = 271 pages

Part V = 1264 pages // Arcs 27-31 = 1198 // (9 missing pages, rounding error + 57 missing pages, whole book)

EDIT: Virginie pointed out that there is a 7000 page edition in the top 5... instead of doing all the math again, I just added 10 pages to Arcs 1-30, and 20 to the last arc... that adds in the missing 320 pages... (hide spoiler)]

I did all this math 9 months ago, and today Virginie posted accurate numbers from her ebook, on page 4: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

To all future readers, it might help to consider this book in smaller Super-Arcs:

Super-Arc 1: Arcs 1-8: Origin Story
Super-Arc 2: Arc 9-14: The S9
Super-Arc 3: TBD
Super-Arc 4: TBD
Super-Arc 5" TBD

These Arcs are meant to better split the story, rather than just topping out a 5x Stormlight Archive size tomes...

[Yanique, Thread Master]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Hopefully I didn't waste all that time/math... hopefully it's useful to someone :)"

Man! That's some hoop jumping and I'm lazy (I'm sure it's chronic) so I'll be e-reading on the website. Wish me luck, LOL!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Yanique wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Hopefully I didn't waste all that time/math... hopefully it's useful to someone :)"

Man! That's some hoop jumping and I'm lazy (I'm sure it's chronic) so I'll be e-r..."

Virginie is currently reading, Arkadeb just finished, and idiffer read this a year or 2 ago... maybe one of those could hook you up, if they made ebooks, through email/direct message... benefit from their efforts...

Virginie started custom-making ebooks last year, for her Short Story A Day thread... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

[Hailee]

I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on my phone. So this seemed like a good thing to fit in since reading the paperback of this isn't an option anyway.

I should easily get an arc read each week so it'll take me up to about July/August. I'm not putting it on my currently reading shelf though since having it hanging around that long will annoy me. I'll just mark it as read once I've finished it.

I read arc 1 tonight and quite enjoyed it. (view spoiler)[The bug aspect gave me the creeps though. I can't imagine a superhero power I would like less than that one!!! (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Hailee wrote: "I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on my phone so this seemed like a good thing to fit in since read..."

I imagine it would be super useful tho... just look at the ninja ferrets in Hidden Legacy...

[Hailee]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Hailee wrote: "I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on my phone so this seemed like a good thing to fi..."

Haha maybe but (view spoiler)[since I have a strong phobia of flying insects of all types I can only think of one thing worse than having that particular superpower and that is having someone else with that superpower attack me with it!!! *shudders* (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Hailee wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Hailee wrote: "I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on my phone so this..."

You know Children of Time is about a planet of super-intelligent bugs, right?... I checked, and you didn't read it with us last year, but it's on your TBR...

[Hailee]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Hailee wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Hailee wrote: "I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on m..."

No I didn't have time to fit it in when everyone read it last year but yeah I own a copy ready to read.

So super-intelligent bugs? That should be an interesting reading experience 😂😂. I'll have to hope they are human sized. Weird that that would make it better but its them flying in your
face and potentially landing on you that freaks me out about flying bugs.

[Anni]

Hailee wrote: " I'll have to hope they are human sized. Weird that that would make it better but its them flying in your face and potentially landing on you that freaks me out about flying bugs. "

Sorry, but this made me laugh, it's really cute somehow! 😂

[Anni]

I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

You and Elinor can schedule a slower pace... 6680 pages probably equals several years... Me and Yanique will probably read it in a month or 2... dunno where Hailee will fit on the spectrum...

At least all the math I did in comments 2-3 should help you earn some points out of the BR, even if you don't finish it all by October...

I actually thought of you, and a scheduled read, when I first started thinking about reading this, but the timeline daunted me... it seems like a nice pairing with Super Powereds, tho... Hero training vs morally ambiguous Hero/Villain survival (that's the vibe I get from reviews/comments, anyway...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Hailee wrote: "I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on my phone. So this seemed like a good thing to fit in since rea..."

The armor is cool, tho... (view spoiler)[she's spider-woman (hide spoiler)]

At least it's not like Men in Black, with the person made out of cockroaches...

I started listening to Arc 1 (Gestation), by the way...

[Anni]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

You and Elinor can schedule a slower pace... 6680 pages probably equals several years... Me a..."

I would do audio as well, so I won't need till October. I think two weeks per part shouldn't be too stressfull.

[Elinor]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

You and Elinor can schedule a slower pace... 6680 pages probably equals several years... Me a..."

I'm all for slower pace... wait, what do you mean, everybody already knows that I'm a snail ?

Hailee wrote: "I decided to give this a try. I have a lot of "wasted" time during the day where reading a paperback isn't practical but I can read on my phone. So this seemed like a good thing to fit in since rea..."

An arc a week seems doable... I think I'm going to set myself the goal to have it finish by the end of the competition, to have some extra weeks just in case, and see how that goes. I may set the bar lower if I feel too much pressure :)

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Sir Anni wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

You and Elinor can schedule a slower pace... 6680 pages probab..."

My comparison was to the fact the 800 page Superpowereds takes 2 months :)

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Elinor Master of Gifs wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

You and Elinor can schedule a slower pace... 6680 pages probab..."

I dunno that you're a snail... you just spread your reading time out across more books/comics... anything is slower, when I read about 400 pages/day, and devote it all to a single book at a time, for the most part... no judgment...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The fact that most of the smaller audiobook contributors are Interlude readers, seems like it's going to work out well... the Interludes are from the POV of side characters anyway, so giving them a different voice is nice...

I'm early into Arc 2, now...

[Elinor]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Elinor Master of Gifs wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

You and Elinor can schedule a sl..."

I am not as fast a reader as a lot of people here... but I do jave some excuses ^^ everything is indeed slower when you read a lot of books at the same time like I do, sometimes it is frustrating, but most of the time that's what I prefer. Also I now read a lot in english and I'm still not as fast in english than in my mother tongue.

Can we use roman numbers for the bigger parts or something ? Because I am confused between the smaller and bigger parts ;p or perhaps calling arcs the small ones and parts the big ones ?

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Arc 2: Bullying: (view spoiler)[is it wrong that I want Worm (I assume that's her future cape/hero name) to use her bug powers subtly to get the others to back off?

On another level, I wonder if there's an emotion-power involved in the bullying... but then you start to fall into the trap of assuming everything is power-related... (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Elinor Master of Gifs wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Elinor Master of Gifs wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

Y..."

I'm changing it, but the real problem was me typing Arc instead of Part

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Elinor Master of Gifs wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Elinor Master of Gifs wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "I'm also interested. It sounds like it would be a great book for a scheduled read? 😬"

Y..."

My problem, with books like this, is I want to call the arcs chapters, even tho there are technically smaller chapters within each arc...

The podcast follows the website numbering, which is 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, etc... with Interludes getting numbers or letters, for unknown reasons...

[Virginie]

WEEEEEE PEOPLE READING WORM! :D

[Virginie]

I've been reading one arc per week so far. I'll speed up/slow down depending on my BR schedule, I think. (Urgh, I'm already late to everything :p)

[Virginie]

Btw, since we're using the highest page count of the 5 most popular editions for the competition... It's 7000 pages.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Virginie wrote: "Btw, since we're using the highest page count of the 5 most popular editions for the competition... It's 7000 pages."

uh... I don't want to do the math again... just give every Arc ten more pages, and the last one 20... problem solved...

Realistically, the math is more like 9 more pages every 5hrs...

[Virginie]

Haha, yeah, I figured. I was planning on going the lazy route, and just add 1400 pages every 20% :p

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Virginie wrote: "Haha, yeah, I figured. I was planning on going the lazy route, and just add 1400 pages every 20% :p"

That's basically what breaking the book into 5 Parts did for me, as well...

[Virginie]

Bwahahaha! Sorry? :p

[Virginie]

For those interested, I made an ebook of the whole thing. I already gave it to Elinor. PM me and I'll send you the link.

I only ask that you don't share it online/send it the other people (copyright issues). The author doesn't want a "full" ebook to circulate in case he ever wants to professionally publish his work.

[Virginie]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Arc 2: Bullying (spoilers removed)"

Oh, I didn't think of (view spoiler)[the possibility of an emotions-based power. I don't think so, though. Just simple, mean bullying.

Those parts are really hard to read. She's staying really strong about not using her power to stop the bullying. I keep thinking: "Oh, that's the kind of backstory a villain would get". I'm really afraid that she'll simply lash out one day, and go down the villain path. (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Virginie wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Arc 2: Bullying (spoilers removed)"

Oh, I didn't think of the possibility of an emotions-based power. I don't think so, though. Just simple, mean bullying.

Those pa..."

Especially since Arkadeb/everyone says this is a pretty dark book... no simple black & white characters here... (view spoiler)[only reason I wondered about emotion powers is because of how "cranked up to 11" the school scenes are... the author website says Wildbow used to volunteer, and all the school stuff is based on personal experience or the experiences of people he knows... so I guess it's all accurate... painfully accurate...

I was pretty scrawny until 9th grade when my weight doubled... people left me alone after that, lol... (hide spoiler)]

[Virginie]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Especially since Arkadeb/everyone says this is a pretty dark book..."

Yeah. (view spoiler)[ Those school scenes are really intense, and knowing the author is drawing on personal experience makes it even worse.

Thankfully, I was never bullied in school. I was seriously afraid of it back then, but my classmates always told me I was "such a nerd, but a likable one". Also helped that I'm quite strong for a girl. Not super athletic, but just enough so that people watching me play tennis would think "Oh yeah, I don't want to get on her bad side". (hide spoiler)]

[Jenna, I'd be free if not for Temper & Edgewalker]

For whatever crazy reason, I have been convinced and am here to join the party.

[Soo]

How's the writing?

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Soo wrote: "How's the writing?"

I haven't noticed any problem yet... most things, like typos, probably won't be noticeable on audio... I'm only about 100-150 pages in so far, tho...

[Anni]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "If you prefer to speed your audiobooks up, the best solution seems to be to download it in iTunes/GooglePlay, and change the filetype from podcast to audiobook, like I did... I then broke the book into 5 sub-books......"

You don't have to necessarily, you could also just use one of the Potcast-players. I downloaded "WeCast" (Yeah, I picked that one because it has a smileyface 😂), it's pretty simple, but does everything I want a audiobook app to do and you can speed it up, up to 2.5x

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Yanique wrote: "Virginie wrote: "WEEEEEE PEOPLE READING WORM! :D"

Did you make this into a downloaded ebook format? Iain was saying that you might have. If yes, are you willing to share?"

Just Direct Message her from her profile, and she'll send you a link... she doesn't want it leaking out to the internet at large... where it could hurt the author, in the future, if/when he publishes professionally...

[Soo]

One of my friends told me the writing is okay. I want more affirmations on this before I give it a shot.

*editing rampage* hahaha

[Yanique, Thread Master]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Yanique wrote: "Virginie wrote: "WEEEEEE PEOPLE READING WORM! :D"

Did you make this into a downloaded ebook format? Iain was saying that you might have. If yes, are you willing to share?"

Just Di..."

gotcha!

[jess]

Bookmarking this...in case...

[Elinor]

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "I'm changing it, but the real problem was me typing Arc instead of Part "

XD

[Elinor]

Jenna wrote: "For whatever crazy reason, I have been convinced and am here to join the party."

Yeah ! (Jaghut represents !)

Jess wrote: "Bookmarking this...in case..."

Bookmarking because you ARE joining us ;p

[Hailee]

I've just finished Arc 2: Insinuation

(view spoiler)[I'm really starting to like the Undersiders. Well apart from Bitch... name suits her better than Hellhound 😋. (hide spoiler)]

Interlude 2 (view spoiler)[I actually found this the most interesting chapter yet. I really hope we see more of these two. (hide spoiler)]

[Bill]

I’m so joining this. Will probably start in the next week or two.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Edited all the math at the top, to add in the 320 missing pages, after Virginie pointed out the 7000 page edition was within our rules for the competition... did it the easy way, just adding a flat 10 pages per arc, and 10 leftover pages to the last arc...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Hailee wrote: "I've just finished Arc 2: Insinuation

[spoilers removed]

Interlude 2 [spoilers removed]"

Yea... I stopped near the end of Arc 2: Insinuation, yesterday (2.8, I think): (view spoiler)[so far, the "Villains" don't seem so bad... kinda reminds me of Kick-Ass 2, with the league of amateur heroes in the basement... (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

I'm going to start on 2/1. I already juggling a couple of epic books. =)