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Katalepsis: Volume 1
Heather Morell is haunted. Otherworldly nightmares and monstrous hallucinations lurk around every corner, relics of childhood bereavement and schizophrenia.
Until she meets Evelyn and Raine — a bad-tempered mage and her self-proclaimed bodyguard — and learns that she’s not insane after all.
The monsters she sees are all too real, the god-thing in her nightmares is teaching her the secrets of creation, and her twin sister — the lost girl who supposedly never existed — might still be clinging on, a dwindling soul somewhere beyond the walls of reality, Outside.
Heather plunges into a world of eldritch magic and fanatic cultists, trying to stay alive, stay sane, and deal with her own blossoming attraction to dangerous women. But being ‘In The Know’ isn’t all terror and madness. Sometimes the monsters wear fancy dresses and stick around for afternoon tea. Sometimes she finds more in common with them than she expects. Perhaps this new world is Heather’s chance to be more than a defeated husk of human wreckage.
And perhaps, out there on the far-flung rim of reality, she can find a way to bring her twin sister back from the dead.
Until she meets Evelyn and Raine — a bad-tempered mage and her self-proclaimed bodyguard — and learns that she’s not insane after all.
The monsters she sees are all too real, the god-thing in her nightmares is teaching her the secrets of creation, and her twin sister — the lost girl who supposedly never existed — might still be clinging on, a dwindling soul somewhere beyond the walls of reality, Outside.
Heather plunges into a world of eldritch magic and fanatic cultists, trying to stay alive, stay sane, and deal with her own blossoming attraction to dangerous women. But being ‘In The Know’ isn’t all terror and madness. Sometimes the monsters wear fancy dresses and stick around for afternoon tea. Sometimes she finds more in common with them than she expects. Perhaps this new world is Heather’s chance to be more than a defeated husk of human wreckage.
And perhaps, out there on the far-flung rim of reality, she can find a way to bring her twin sister back from the dead.
741 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 4, 2022
43 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 12, 2026
The Best Web Serial I've Ever Read
If someone had told me, back at the end of January 2024, right after I finished TWI vol.1 (which I bounced pretty hard off, the first web-serial I read), that I'd find an 8000+ page Cosmic Horror x Urban Fantasy x Sapphic Romance web-serial with a level of writing quality ( all aspects, incl. some extremely delicious prose) reaching & surpassing some of my very favourite novels (e.g. the works of Cormac McCarthy, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien), I'd have laughed in their face... Yet here I am, utterly humbled by this revelation and continually blown away by Katalepsis: a rare thing, to be awed by a masterful-execution of an entire new medium (to me).
Completed in Jan 2025, Katalepsis is a masterpiece of web-fiction. Read it. It was hands-down the best work I read in 2024 and 2025.
It can be read in its entirety for free at https://katalepsis.net/ (or on RR/shub, or via .epubs as shared in the Discord server).
~~~
Original review below:
Spoiler alert: that assessment didn't change. A genuine, flash-in-the-pan, utterly surprising, fantastically brilliant masterpiece. I'd rate it 6/5 stars if I could: it's stunning works like these that we readers hope --no, yearn-- to find and experience. Best feeling in the world.
If someone had told me, back at the end of January 2024, right after I finished TWI vol.1 (which I bounced pretty hard off, the first web-serial I read), that I'd find an 8000+ page Cosmic Horror x Urban Fantasy x Sapphic Romance web-serial with a level of writing quality ( all aspects, incl. some extremely delicious prose) reaching & surpassing some of my very favourite novels (e.g. the works of Cormac McCarthy, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien), I'd have laughed in their face... Yet here I am, utterly humbled by this revelation and continually blown away by Katalepsis: a rare thing, to be awed by a masterful-execution of an entire new medium (to me).
Completed in Jan 2025, Katalepsis is a masterpiece of web-fiction. Read it. It was hands-down the best work I read in 2024 and 2025.
It can be read in its entirety for free at https://katalepsis.net/ (or on RR/shub, or via .epubs as shared in the Discord server).
~~~
Original review below:
As of 15th April 2024 I am all caught up (Arc 24, Chapter 9):
I read the entirety of Katalepsis in just 39 days (if that isn't a glowing endorsement I don't know what is). This is without a doubt the best web serial I've ever read, across all measures: story (the tightly-written, meticulously planned arc format is a revelation; as carefully written as any excellent print-novel), writing quality & style (sublimely vivid prose-porn descriptions of Outside), characters (phenomenal characterisation & depth) and overall care and consideration for the whole package (there's no filler here). Once the final arc has completed I shall update this review with full thoughts: for now, I'll wholeheartedly recommend this if you have any interest in eldritch horror and/or sapphic romance
10/10, can't see that changing. Read it.
Spoiler alert: that assessment didn't change. A genuine, flash-in-the-pan, utterly surprising, fantastically brilliant masterpiece. I'd rate it 6/5 stars if I could: it's stunning works like these that we readers hope --no, yearn-- to find and experience. Best feeling in the world.
January 5, 2023
Loved the concept, but by arc 10 the tension and the romance and the self-pity started to DRAG.
December 23, 2022
could have been better with less romance and smut
Story was pretty good and I liked all the characters enough, especially Twil and Evelyn. Nice Creepy imagery of wonderland and the horrors haunting the MC. I got a little sick of all the romance and tension between MC and Raine. MC wallows too much and I get sick of her pitiful self esteem and always feeling inferior. I really had no interest in reading about her sex life and crush on Raine. I can tolerate it to a point, but it just went on and on.
Story was pretty good and I liked all the characters enough, especially Twil and Evelyn. Nice Creepy imagery of wonderland and the horrors haunting the MC. I got a little sick of all the romance and tension between MC and Raine. MC wallows too much and I get sick of her pitiful self esteem and always feeling inferior. I really had no interest in reading about her sex life and crush on Raine. I can tolerate it to a point, but it just went on and on.
dnf
August 31, 2023DNF 19%.
May 23, 2024
DNF 38%
The world building is interesting but everything drags and I can’t stand most of the characters. The main character is whiny and irritating. I don’t know what’s happening or how the main character’s sister went missing, and found it all both boring and confusing. It takes a lot for me to not finish a book in the first place and this one takes the cake.😒
The world building is interesting but everything drags and I can’t stand most of the characters. The main character is whiny and irritating. I don’t know what’s happening or how the main character’s sister went missing, and found it all both boring and confusing. It takes a lot for me to not finish a book in the first place and this one takes the cake.😒
January 30, 2024
I mean, it's alright.
May 19, 2025
DNF'd at 26%
This book reminds me a lot of both Middlegame and Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, not only in the actual content of the book, but also in my experience of reading them. Both of those books were just okay enough at any point that I hesitated to drop them. Especially with Middlegame, I went through the entire book—and the book was quite long—wondering if I should drop it until eventually I finished it. Unsurprisingly, I regret doing so because it was mid. I've decided not to make this mistake a third time.
This book reminds me a lot of both Middlegame and Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, not only in the actual content of the book, but also in my experience of reading them. Both of those books were just okay enough at any point that I hesitated to drop them. Especially with Middlegame, I went through the entire book—and the book was quite long—wondering if I should drop it until eventually I finished it. Unsurprisingly, I regret doing so because it was mid. I've decided not to make this mistake a third time.
August 20, 2024
(10.5/10) Speaking as someone who reads 100+ books a year, this has become my favourite written work. Katalepsis takes equal measures of my two favourite book subjects - sapphic romance/complicated relationships, and fantastical phenomena beyond comprehension - and weaves them into a story of astonishing richness and depth, one that makes full use of its length to steadily build and deliver non-stop surprise gifts to the reader. I couldn't possibly run through everything that I love about it, because I've loved it all. I have found it unputdownable in a very literal sense. It's taken over my life for the month it took me to read up to arc 24.25. I am probably going to re-read it immediately now that I've caught up.
(as a caveat: I won't argue it's perfect in any objective sense. No web serial this long-running is immune to dragging or repetition if you read it all in one go, that's the nature of the medium. I will happily argue, though, that the originality, the writing quality, the exploration of the characters and the richness of the prose are all objectively superb. And subjectively, for me, perfect.)
(as a caveat: I won't argue it's perfect in any objective sense. No web serial this long-running is immune to dragging or repetition if you read it all in one go, that's the nature of the medium. I will happily argue, though, that the originality, the writing quality, the exploration of the characters and the richness of the prose are all objectively superb. And subjectively, for me, perfect.)
December 18, 2025
I am a huge fan of serial novels, especially the longer the better. So, I was excited to see that the first volume of this web novel was published as an audio book. While I tend to love books with hit the ground running action and adrenaline rushes, this is something more psychological rather than action oriented. So, it did take me a while to get into this, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The story, rather than hits you full force, it gently settles over you, and is incredibly philosophical. I enjoyed the found family aspect, too. The narrator was perfect for this novel. While I love listening and reading equally, a narrator can make or break a story. If another audio book is made, count me in.
May 13, 2024
The sentence level writing is great as well as the voice acting. The all female cast could have been interesting but the individual characters fall a bit flat. A cripple, an athlete, an ex-girlfriend, and an insecure main character. One could argue that the book is successful at emoting angst, insecurity, self-questioning, sexual nervousness, hesitancy, fear, low confidence. It does it very well. So well that the internals of the main character are much scary, more overpowering, than the fantasy world the characters living in. Expectation can be a poison to any book. I was just expecting more fantasy world building and less human frailty.
I don't think I can finish.
I don't think I can finish.
April 19, 2023
In addition to adventure, this beautifully imagined, wise, and introspective novel focuses riotous otherworldly adventure, self discovery, and finding home and family. The early twenties cast is all female, and the novel is unapologetically lesbian. (I've yet to come across a male character who's not a bad guy or the dupe of a bad guy). But despite the "emerging adult" vibe, all sex is closed door and romance issues fail to overshadow the adventure plot.
January 29, 2024
Not my type of read but was recommended for 12 books by 12 friends for 2024. Tenny is adorable. More Tenny. Felt like it didn’t need to be this long, it got repetitive between the girl fights/flirting and the constant pouting from Heather about “woe is me I abandoned my twin and everybody thinks I’m crazy.” Parts of it reminded me of Every Heart a Doorway and Lisey’s Story.
October 17, 2023
I am at least another volume deep in this series. I love the horror, queer and poly rep, the characters, and the whimsical yet terrifying settings.
November 2, 2024
This book has rewired how my brain works.
October 28, 2023
So this is another online fiction that I've been reading, and this is the first four arcs (out of 21) of that series. Don't worry about being daunted by it since this book is fairly self contained and it won't leave you hanging by the end. Sadly, only volume 1 has been published so if you want to keep reading the story, you'd have to go and read it on Royal Road. I *do* recommend that you keep going, though, since it's really darn good.
The things I like: The eldritch horror is sufficiently eldritchy. All sorts of horrors and things Man Was Not Meant to Know, and elder gods and suchlike. The book is just stuffed full of 'em. Also, disaster lesbians. Disaster lesbians always makes the book better, IMO. They also do a good job at having all the characters maintain a distinct voice. I've read too many books where the characters all blend in together, but here each one is very clearly defined.
In the end I recommend checking it out either by buying this book or by going here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/280... Five stars.
The things I like: The eldritch horror is sufficiently eldritchy. All sorts of horrors and things Man Was Not Meant to Know, and elder gods and suchlike. The book is just stuffed full of 'em. Also, disaster lesbians. Disaster lesbians always makes the book better, IMO. They also do a good job at having all the characters maintain a distinct voice. I've read too many books where the characters all blend in together, but here each one is very clearly defined.
In the end I recommend checking it out either by buying this book or by going here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/280... Five stars.
August 28, 2025
Arc 1-4 === ??? to May 26 2025
Arc 5-7 === May 27 to June 1 2025
Arc 8-10 === June 2 to June 5 2025
Arc 11-13 === June 6 to August 26 2025
Arc 14 === August 27 to ???
Arc 5-7 === May 27 to June 1 2025
Arc 8-10 === June 2 to June 5 2025
Arc 11-13 === June 6 to August 26 2025
Arc 14 === August 27 to ???
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews