f7d9395c_atings_and_reviews___Gwern_net__Review
[Title] Pact [Author] Wildbow [Rating] ★★★★ [Year] 2014 [Read] 2015/03/16 [Review] 
Pact (~950k words; 3 days; TvTropes) takes the Worm formula but this time heads to modern urban Western occult fantasy. Where Worm tried to rationalize classic superhero fiction, Pact instead aims at rationalizing the quasi-Lovecraft paradigm of vaguely-Wiccan/occult fantasy set in small New England-esque towns with angels, demons, high-fantasy Elves, folklore creatures like goblins, oaths, and warring clans of secretive practitioners submerged in a sea of ‘muggles’; the continued survival of occult knowledge is attributed to a long demonic campaign of subversion, magic is gained by ritual rather than genes, a ‘karma’ mechanism and magically-enforced honesty (essentially, narrative causality souped way up) encourages dramatic acting and minimizing genuine conflict; and the supernatural is part of a feedback loop like superpowers in Worm. Curiously, for all the complaints about Pact being unbearably grim, the world itself is much more optimisticly constructed - as one character says, humanity has been winning (in contrast to the nigh-inevitable defeat of humanity in Worm). The start of the plot itself is well-enough described officially: Blake Thorburn was driven away from home and family by a vicious fight over inheritance, returning only for a deathbed visit with the grandmother who set it in motion. Blake soon finds himself next in line to inherit the property, a trove of dark supernatural knowledge, and the many enemies his grandmother left behind her in the small town of Jacob’s Bell. It’s probably not much of a spoiler to say that the initial maneuvering will break out into open warfare and demons will be unleashed and fought. (Chekhov’s imp: if there is a devil in the attic in Act 1, it will be unleashed by Act 3.) So what’s good about Pact? Well, it has a much faster start than Worm, the world-building takes what is usually authorial fiat and regulates it a bit so the action matters, some scenes are fantastic (who could not enjoy the chapter about Blake negotiating a contract with the demon Pazu?), the darkness is leavened by humor, and it is not as exhaustingly comprehensive as Worm. And demon lawyers are intrinsically funny. The downsides are: Blake exists only to suffer, so people who found Worm too crushing to read will probably be unable to survive a reading of Pact and Blake himself winds up being mostly a cipher (and whether this was deliberate or not, it still damages the work); Wildbow repeats his ‘Slaughterhouse Nine arc’ error (this time, in the Toronto/Conquest fetch arc, which takes up a really absurd fraction of the work); a key twist is… questionably consistent with previously given rules & facts; the magic, while still much better than most fantasy, is still heavy on fiat and uncomfortably repetitive compared to the diversity and rigor of superpowers in Worm and some important elements seemed underused (for all the stress placed on threes, I have a hard time naming any meaningful examples); and the ending is shockingly abrupt, with almost all narrative threads and mysteries dropped or unresolved. Wildbow’s post-mortem covers some of these issues. Overall: good but not as great as Worm.
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