Welcome to Night Vale: the Novel
If, like me, you are a fan of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast you will be excited to learn that a novel set in the community is now available.
The podcast, Welcome to Night Vale takes the form of a small town radio show. Host Cecil Gershwin Palmer describes community events and local news in the desert town of Night Vale. High school football games and town council meetings share air time with vapour clouds, mysterious hooded figures, malevolent librarians, and "a vague yet menacing" Secret Police force.
My favourite installments are about the town library. Its summer reading program had an unusually high body count.
Cory Doctorow, in his rave review, said that the book "manages the near impossible: balancing precisely on the single-molecule-thick line separating weird humor and real pathos".
To learn more about this sleepy and extremely weird community listen to the podcasts or get a copy of the book–unless you live in Night Vale where:
books have simply ceased functioning. The scientists are studying one of the broken books to see if they can understand just what is going on here. The exact problem is currently unclear, but some of the words being used include ‘sparks,' ‘meat smell,' ‘biting,' and ‘lethal gas.' For your own safety, please do not attempt to open a book until we have more information on the nature and cause of these problems. The city council has released only a brief statement, indicating that their stance on books has not changed, and that, as always, they believe that books are dangerous and inadvisable, and should not be kept in private homes.
Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
• Audiobook (read by Cecil Baldwin!)
• eBook
• Large Print
• Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)
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