This is an an review of Creep, written when Chapter 11 was the latest available.
There are perils of reviewing web fiction very early in its lifetime. Creep has twelve chapters and not terribly much more than twenty thounsand words to its name. In the web serial world, that’s scarcely anything at all.
But, particularly given the tame length of the author’s other serials, it’s enough to get a feel for what Creep will and won’t offer, if not enough to be precise about it.
Creep is a super hero story (hardly the most promising of genres), but it has a few good things going for it: the concept of a superhero draft, a protagonist with no desire for heroics, and a power that wouldn’t get a second glance in a body horror fic. Certainly nothing that’s going to blow you away with its creativity. But there are compliments to be given for venturing on the frontier rather than old world, even if it’s no terra ignota.
But let’s going into what Creep does well and what it doesn’t. It’s clear that this story aims to be a pulpy romp, and plot is the skeleton of pulp. And that is a target which Creep cleanly snipes; scene-by-scene progression of Creep is paced whip quick and not a chapter goes by before the story is thrust on along or undergoes some new development. The weakest point, plotwise, is that the motivations behind events aren’t always the clearest, and occasionally leaves one furrowing their brow. And besides that, the fast pace is a double-edged; in places, the ideas and almost fly by half developed, and it leaves the story oddly proportioned. (The 11th chapter particularly comes to mind here.) But it’s worth remarking that Creep was able to hook me by the end of the first chapter. And it’s worth remarking that Creep is consistently able to get me properly hyped for a fight.
Of character, I’ve already mentioned that the motivations aren’t always the most cogent. Walter in particularly is somewhat bemusing in this regard; despite being the narrator, his intentions are occasionally obscured for dramatic effect. Some find stories like this frustrating, but I don’t quite mind it. It has, however, lead to beats where I have read back over a passage to get a grip on what the protagonist himself is feeling and why. I don’t want this to sound more critical than is warranted, however: Creep’s characters are good. It’s always worth commenting on when an author can get you to admire a character in only a few scenes. And again, Creep hits this target dead center; dialogue between characters is bouncy and entertaining. But the great characterization is not uniform; while the heroes are admirable (even when they conflict with the protag), the villains are scarcely more than human shaped obstacles. It’s certainly not out of place, for the villains of a super serial to be rationed a punch rather than an argument, but it is disapointing. As the serial goes on, I expect no one will remember the villains from the first arc (save Old Hickory himself, perhaps), and I think that’s a shame. I will grant that this makes some sense; the villains of the first arc are, in fact, human-shaped obstacles, and aren’t the real antagonists. Still, I gripe.
Most prospective readers would do well to skip this next paragraph, as it’s a point few are snobbish enough to care about. Personally, I believe where Creep falls flattest of all in it’s prose. I’ve gotten hundreds of words into review without mentioning the impressive fact that Creep has been updating on the daily with full, 8-10 page chapters. It’s certainly admirable, but it shows. The style of this serial is quite plain, and though it never gets so bad as to be amateurish or cringey, or even get in the way of the story, the prose does little more than allow the story to happen. In places you can see the text try and reach for some phrasing more accomplished than stating it obvious, but you could count on one hand the lines that manage to be inspiring — if you’re being generous. I will grant that Creep does stay in its range, for the most part, engaging primarily in street level scuffles and mundane drama that does not suffer for the workman style. Yet the protagonist nonetheless has a power which probes and enlargens the boundaries of human experience, and one would wish it could report back something more impressive than “Death was a new experience for me.”
(I am being harsh. It’s a defensible line, becasue Creep affects that soyishly modern sardonic, ironic tone, and you can’t in good faith critize a story for reaching for humor when that’s in its DNA. But alas.)
O average web serial reader, you could stop skimming now. Or perhaps not. The last thing I will talk about is the themes of Creep. Themes are for eight grade book reports, yes, but Creep is overt enough about its philosophical underbelly that it’s worth a word of warning. If you’re the type who has complaints of ‘pretentiousness’ on hair trigger, Creep may irritate you. The quibbles about the plainness of Creep’s prose rears up again here, for the serial is neither subtle enough nor novel enough that its protracted discussions of society, good and evil, freedom and binaries have any plausible deniability. It avoids bewing trite or ostentatious, and if you’re willing to engage with it, it’s not bad thought food. Honestly, I would easily recommend Creep to those readers looking for fiction with something to say, without being so cloistered you have to do a whole literary analysis to realize what that something is.
All that said, do I recommend Creep? Of course I do. It’s highly accessible and engaging bit of web fiction. It has enough going on, and it has something interesting to say without floundering in the telling. Creep isn’t for everyone, I will admit. But, I venture, it is for most people, and I encourage about anyone who wants a solid, gritty superhero story to give it a good go.