I’m not sure on audiobooks, I read Ward as it was being written, starting when it was in like chapter 6 or 7. I don’t think the first audiobook was finished for months after the end.
I wouldn’t call Ward slice-of-life, necessarily, but there are a few parts I can think of off-hand like a little shopping trip, some therapy, etc that Taylor would never have had time for in Worm. These go away as the story progresses, but they’re nice, and a good look into how the protagonists are feeling and dealing with the situation.
Less Dragon is a bit of a bummer, but hopefully the myriad of new capes ends up balancing that for you.
As for Wildbow’s other works, I haven’t had the time to focus on reading any (thanks life), but I know a lot of people think Pact and Pale are his best works, so I am excited to get into those someday. If I remember right, pact and twig have little cameos in Ward, like TV shows or books or something, and Worm has similar cameos in those works too.
The hopes for a trilogy are probably not gonna happen unfortunately, he’s said that he’s pretty tired of the genre and how some parts of the fandom reacted to Ward’s style and story direction. Tbh I’m not sure what a third entry would even look like, but I said that before I knew about Ward too, so who knows!
Jason Momoa or the guy from Mad Men