It's good, but I'd say it comes in at a definite second place to Worm. There's much more of a focus on trauma and recovery from same, plus a wider cast of characters makes it feel a bit unfocused. Definitely read it if you (1) really enjoyed the angst in Worm and want more like that and (2) are deeply curious about how the world looks post-cataclysm.

There's a huge shift from the ever escalating violence of Worm towards a more grounded focus on the characters and how they deal with it all, while at the same time introducing more and much wilder power interactions along a cast of villains that will make your blood boil, all the while a crisis of cosmic proportions slowly brews in the background. It doesn't have the same rabid energy as Worm, but it has just as many memorable scenes.

It's eight times as long as Moby Dick, but is it right times as good?

(It's at least twice s good, since while I did read Moby Dick for pleasure, I only read it once.)

I strongly prefer Ward, but it is pretty different.

Writing style remains the same, but the themes and focus is pretty different. Wards is more thoughtful in a lot of ways, but it means the pacing is slower and more introspective.

While Worm, keeping spoilers light here, kinda has the Taylor avoid introspection as much as possible, with several stories beats showing how unreliable she is at understanding her own motivations.

I gave up on it on the first real chapter because Wildbow was still repeating the extremely obnoxious pattern of withholding critical information for understanding the significance of a scene -- like who the fuck the primary characters in a scene actually are -- until the end of a chapter. He started doing that heavily in Pact, IIRC.

It's 7600+ words in Daybreak 1.1 before the main character provides their own name! 15+ 8.5x11 pages at ~12pt font of being coy about who the protagonist is!

Maybe someone took Wildbow by the shoulders after that and shook him and said "STOP DOING THAT, THAT'S OBNOXIOUS!" and it gets better -- I don't know; he lost me as a reader with that chapter.

Tidal wave!

So many! You've got to make a post about the coolest detail you noticed on a second read

Now might be the time to get around to it

::: spoiler Worm teaser There's a gay lady who dresses as a doll and has giant plushies, and she falls in love with a supervillain ::

I think you should read two chapters - one to see if you can get over that feeling, one to try enjoying it. If you're not having fun after two chapters, you can wait some more.

I mean it is a superhero story