‘Ward’ — Part Two of the ‘Parahumans’ Series by John McCrae

It’s been about a year and a half since I read John “Wildbow” McCrae’s 1.7-million-word “parahuman” web serial, Worm. Ever since, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the follow-up to that story, and starting with a teaser/prologue arc in October 2017, my wish finally came true. Or at least began to.

The sequel’s name? Ward.

Taking place two years after the events of Worm, Ward is told from the perspective of a character who appeared several times in the first series but wasn’t all that much of a major player at the time. I’m trying not to be too spoiler-y here, I hope you’ll forgive my cryptic description. In fact, I can’t really even tell you any more about the plot without talking about how Worm ended, because Ward isn’t meant to be read in isolation like that.

Anyway, the story is currently ongoing and is only in its third arc, so my perspective as a Worm fan is that it will be weird following along with Ward in “real time” (so to speak) rather than binging the entire thing as I’m able.

If you’ve read Worm and want to catch up on Ward, you can either start with the “Glow-worm” teaser arc, or jump straight to Arc 1 (Daybreak). There’s also a community-driven audiobook being created alongside the story itself, which is pretty cool.