Happy 10th Anniversary Night Vale!

Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor that started in 2012 and has since exploded into a bona fide franchise, spawning its own podcast network, live shows, merchandise, and books. Mercer County Library System has all of the books in the Night Vale family. If you’re a fan of the charming, surreal podcast or just enjoy the unusual, you may want to read (or listen to - some of these books are in audiobook form) what the creators of Night Vale and their collaborators have to offer. Welcome to Night Vale (the podcast) is set in the town of Night Vale, a desert community where all manner of paranormal and supernatural things happen, but are treated like common everyday occurrences. The podcast is a fictional radio show set in this bizarre community and hosted by Cecil Palmer (voiced by Cecil Baldwin). This year is Welcome to Night Vale’s 10th anniversary, so I thought we should look at what the Night Vale books have to offer.

The first book that was published under the Night Vale umbrella is appropriately titled Welcome to Night Vale. This novel is available at MCLS as a physical book and a book on CD; it is also available through hoopla as an eBook and eAudiobook. Like all of the novels in the Night Vale universe, Welcome to Night Vale follows secondary and tertiary characters from the podcast. This story features Jackie Fiero, a young woman who is permanently nineteen years old, and Diane Crayton, a single mother with a son who is a shapeshifter. When I say Jackie is permanently nineteen, I don’t mean she is immature, I mean she is literally permanently nineteen. Her aging stopped at nineteen, possibly for centuries. One of the strengths of Night Vale, both in podcast and novels, is the use of the bizarre to illustrate the mundane. While most people don’t get stuck at nineteen permanently, there are a lot of nineteen-year-olds that feel stuck and, like Jackie, lack direction. Jackie, Diane, and Diane’s son Josh, end up chasing a mystery related to a piece of paper with the words “King City” on it. This novel is weird, moving, and weirdly moving, and worth the read whether you are a fan of the podcast or not.

The second book in the Night Vale universe is It Devours. It Devours is available at MCLS as a physical book and book on CD, and is available through hoopla as an eBook and eAudiobook. I called It Devours the second Night Vale book, but these books don’t have to be read in any kind of order. They take place in the Night Vale universe, but you don’t need to read the previous novel before you read this one. This novel is something of a love story, but a Night Vale version. A young scientist named Nilanjana and a pious young man named Darryl fall for each other while investigating the mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. Darryl being pious means he belongs to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, a cult that originated in Night Vale’s rival town, Desert Bluffs. While the story sets itself up as a science vs. religion, opposites attract love story, it actually ends up in a much more nuanced place. Also, a giant sand worm rampages through town, so there’s that. I actually don’t think It Devours is as good as Welcome to Night Vale, but it’s still a fun and easy read.

The third novel from the Night Vale universe is The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. This book is available at MCLS as a physical book, and also available through hoopla as an eBook and eAudiobook. None of the Night Vale novels require you to be a fan of the podcast, but this book is the one that fans will appreciate much more than non-fans. The Faceless Old Woman is a recurring character in the podcast. She lives in every home in Night Vale simultaneously and possibly every home everywhere. She gets into a lot of mischief, and by mischief I mean setting all your shoes on fire or jamming glass shards into your car’s ignition. You know, mischief. So, who is she? Why is she faceless? How can she live in everyone’s home all at once? Absolutely none of those questions are answered in this novel. However, you do get her origin story. Her life before she was a faceless specter, and you find out why she spends more time in some homes than others. As I said you don’t have to be a fan of the podcast to understand these books, but if you are a podcast fan, this novel will be especially satisfying.

Speaking of the podcast, if you prefer reading to listening, transcripts of the podcast have been released in four volumes: Mostly Void, Partially Stars: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 1; The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 2; The Buying of Lot 37: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 3; and Who’s a Good Boy?: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 4. All four of these volumes are available as eBooks through hoopla and Volume 3 is available as a physical copy at MCLS.

The previous books are all part of the Welcome to Night Vale universe, but as I mentioned before, the creators of Welcome to Night Vale have their own podcast network featuring fiction and nonfiction podcasts, and a couple of those podcasts have their own novels. Alice isn’t Dead (the podcast) was created by Joseph Fink and ran from 2016 to 2017. Alice isn’t Dead (the novel) is a novelization of the podcast series. Alice isn’t Dead has the same surreal charm as Welcome to Night Vale, but it’s less funny and more dreamy. It follows a truck driver searching for her wife, whom she thought was dead. It uses its dreamy, surreal charm to be an interesting meditation on travel, anxiety, relationships, and bigotry. It also doesn’t pull punches when it comes to its horror elements. Welcome to Night Vale combines horror and the mundane as a form of comedy. Alice Isn’t Dead forces you to sit with and think on the horror elements and the anxiety they cause. The writing is incredibly good. Alice Isn’t Dead is available through MCLS as a physical book and book on CD, and is also available through hoopla as an eBook and eAudiobook.

Another podcast on the Night Vale Presents network is Within the Wires. Within the Wires was created in 2016 by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson. The writing can get as dreamy and surreal as its podcast cousins, but the world where it takes place is a lot more straightforward and grounded than Welcome to Night Vale or Alice isn’t Dead. It is an alternate history from a world where a devastating series of wars, natural disasters, disease, and famine called the “Great Reckoning” absolutely devastated the planet. Survivors formed “The Society” and decided that to avoid future wars, countries and the family unit itself had to be abolished. In this world children are raised in education centers and have their memories wiped at age ten. There are also no national borders, as nations no longer exist. The novel set in the Within the Wires universe is called You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, and is available at MCLS as a physical book. Unlike the other novels we’ve mentioned, no characters from the podcast are actually in this novel. It is written as a biography from the doctor who perfected the memory wiping technique that is inflicted on all children. Her life and her choices change the world and she wants her audience to understand why she chose them. There are also some very entertaining footnotes from a member of the “Great Society” who does not believe any of the author’s claims. The story is compelling, and the novel is an easy read. You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is probably the most accessible of the Night Vale novels. None of the novels require prior knowledge of the podcast to understand, but in You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, none of the characters or events from Within the Wires come up. There is some fan speculation that one of the characters in the novel is one of the characters from the podcast under a different name, but that is just speculation. The title is a reference to something from season 1 of the podcast, but it’s not something you need to know before reading.

In their tenth anniversary, Welcome to Night Vale has a lot to be proud of. They have expanded their empire in ways I don’t think even the creators could have imagined. The worlds they’ve created have entertained legions of fans and they don’t appear to be slowing down. Hopefully, they’ll keep adding new novels to their creative output! .

- by Shanna Caines, Acquisition and Cataloging