I avoided web novels for ages because I knew this would happen to me, but then a friend recommended Shadow Slave to me last weekend and god damn it my life is over.
You read a chapter, around a thousand words. It ends on a light cliffhanger. You swipe to the next chapter. Repeat ad infinitum. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get through a longer book – I’ve been reading Don Juan for, like, a month now – but this? 300 chapters in a week. Around 300k words. Like nothing.
I have over 700 chapters to go before I catch up, but then what? I can hardly imagine a world where I stop at just one series, even though it has a new chapter every goddamn day. Maybe I check out the sources for other manwha and light novels I’ve read. Maybe I dive into that one where Florida Man is selling bath salts in another world. There are too many options. How many years of my life will disappear into reading mediocre but addicting progression fantasy a few hundred words at a time?
TL;DR I have a problem but at least I’m not on Reddit.
Happened to me with wildbow‘s worm — super long, but just stays so addictive.
The issue with web novels (or atleast the Chinese ones I read) are in the end, after thousands of chapters, the author will always run out of ideas, they just keep writing for the sake of it (subscription based, they make money by putting words).
Kindle almost got me with their new “Vela” stuff. Nope. My backlog is big enough to get hooked on an infinite book.
