Welcome to Night Vale
A Novel
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4.5 • 193 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Bestseller
"Hypnotic and darkly funny. . . . Belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in." —The Guardian
“A splendid, weird, moving novel.”— NPR.org
From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves. . . no matter where we live.
Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.
Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "KING CITY" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.
Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.
Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "KING CITY". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fink and Cranor, co-creators of the popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast, successfully expand the mythology of their strange desert town. The novel follows Diane Crayton, whose shapeshifting son's absentee father has just come back to town, and Jackie Fierro, who's been the 19-year-old proprietor of Night Vale's pawnshop for the last several decades. After peculiar, half-remembered encounters with a man in a tan jacket, both women keep coming back to the same phrase: King City. Diane and Jackie have to work together to peel back the mysteries surrounding King City while trying to protect their loved ones. Though the book meanders a bit in the middle, the end is satisfying, with a surprising origin story for one of the characters. Fans will find it refreshing to see Night Vale from different perspectives and to meet characters who have only been mentioned before in passing, but knowledge of the podcast isn't required to follow the story. This unusual experiment in format-shifting works surprisingly well.
Customer Reviews
Surreal And Humorous
"Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel" is a longer form story set in the surreal world first described by the hit 2012 Welcome to Night Vale Podcast. As a podcast listener, I had no trouble slipping into the familiar world of the isolated desert town of Night Vale where eldritch horror is normal, and virtually every conspiracy theory is just a part of everyday life. I think the novel would allow the uninitiated to begin to understand and accept the weirdness of Night Vale and its residents, like the Sheriff's Secret Police who keep order, or the gruesome and ravenous beings known as librarians.
The novel's main characters are Jackie, who runs Night Vale's odd pawn shop, and Diane, who is a office worker, and is trying to be a good single mother to her shape-shifting teenaged boy, Josh. These two women find themselves wrapped up in a mystery involving a nearby place known as King City. These women come together to overcome their problems, and eventually become friends, as they work to find out why the mystery of King City has disturbed their lives.
The Welcome to Night Vale Community Radio Show, and its beloved host Cecil, makes a appearance in the book as interstitial chapters. These sometimes seem to have plot related information, and sometimes not, but they are always amusing. Throughout the novel the witticism and dry humor that characterize the podcast shine through the text.
The novel does advance the Night Vale world-building. The reader gets to visit the interior of City Hall along with the protagonist as they pay a visit to Mayor Dana Cardinal. We also get to experience the grim horrors of the interior of the library as Jackie and Diane undertake a dangerous mission to look up some information.
I think "Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel" is a decent weird story on its own, and could be understood by an accepting but uninitiated reader who likes the surreal without it being too serious. If you are already familiar with the podcast, it would be a rich and complementary addition to the lore of this very strange place.
YEEESSSSS!!!!
I don't even have to read it and I know it'll be good. Just as long as they talk about Carlos's perfect hair.
All hail!
We all know this book will be perfect. So I am giving it a preemptive 5 stars.
All hail the glow cloud