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A review by gilles
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor
5.0
If you've ever listened to even a single episode of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, then you know the sort of odd language, tangents, and paranormal world it contains. You'll find that thoroughly throughout this book. If you're not familiar with the podcast, you may still get enjoyment out of it as it is written to be understandable even in that case. Where the book differs is that it does not revolve around the radio show as the podcast does, but around several other characters living in Night Vale who are dragged into the mystery of King City and work to find out why and what it is. Many of the characters you may know from the podcast do make appearances here including Cecil himself, but the story does not centre on them.
Having said all that, I really enjoyed this book. It's certainly an unusual read, but there's an interesting and compelling story here with the same sort of character development and subtle humour you'd recognize from the podcast, and it results in a satisfying ending. When you build a world where your audience can accept that pretty much anything goes, there's a lot of places you can take it, and the authors take full advantage of that.
Having said all that, I really enjoyed this book. It's certainly an unusual read, but there's an interesting and compelling story here with the same sort of character development and subtle humour you'd recognize from the podcast, and it results in a satisfying ending. When you build a world where your audience can accept that pretty much anything goes, there's a lot of places you can take it, and the authors take full advantage of that.