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 surreal 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 of weird fiction where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here in this strange and funny fantasy 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, a common enough paranormal trait in town. 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". In this engrossing small town mystery, it is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.
Front Jacket
Praise for Welcome to Night Vale
"This is the novel of your dreams. . . . A friendly (but terrifying) and comic (but dark) and glittering (but bleak) story of misfit family life that unfolds along the side streets, back alleys, and spring-loaded trapdoors of the small town home you'll realize you've always missed living in."--Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside
"Those of us who have gotten to know Night Vale through Cecil Palmer's biweekly radio broadcasts can finally see what it's like to actually live there. It is as weird and surreal as I hoped it would be, and a surprisingly existential meditation on the nature of time, reality, and the Glow Cloud that watches over us."--Wil Wheaton
"Take Conan's Hyboria, teleport it to the American Southwest, dress all the warriors in business casual and hide their swords under the floorboards -- that's Night Vale: absurd, magical, wholly engrossing, and always harboring some hidden menace."--John Darnielle, author of Wolf in White Van
"I've been a fan of Welcome to Night Vale for years, and in that time writers Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink have delighted me with stories that are clever, twisted, beautiful, strange, wonderful, and sweet. This book does all of that and so much more. It's even better than I'd hoped. I think this might be the best book I've read in years."--Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind
"This small town full of hooded figures, glowing clouds, cryptically terrifying public policies, and flickering realities quickly feels more like home than home. . . . There is nothing like Night Vale, in the best possible way."--Maureen Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Name of the Star
"They've done the unthinkable: merged the high weirdness and intense drama of Night Vale to the pages of a novel that is even weirder, even more intense than the podcast."--Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and coeditor of Boing Boing
--Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and co-editor of Boing BoingBack Jacket
Praise for Welcome to Night Vale
"This is the novel of your dreams. . . . A friendly (but terrifying) and comic (but dark) and glittering (but bleak) story of misfit family life that unfolds along the side streets, back alleys, and spring-loaded trapdoors of the small town home you'll realize you've always missed living in."--Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside
"Those of us who have gotten to know Night Vale through Cecil Palmer's biweekly radio broadcasts can finally see what it's like to actually live there. It is as weird and surreal as I hoped it would be, and a surprisingly existential meditation on the nature of time, reality, and the Glow Cloud that watches over us."--Wil Wheaton
"Take Conan's Hyboria, teleport it to the American Southwest, dress all the warriors in business casual and hide their swords under the floorboards -- that's Night Vale: absurd, magical, wholly engrossing, and always harboring some hidden menace."--John Darnielle, author of Wolf in White Van
"I've been a fan of Welcome to Night Vale for years, and in that time writers Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink have delighted me with stories that are clever, twisted, beautiful, strange, wonderful, and sweet. This book does all of that and so much more. It's even better than I'd hoped. I think this might be the best book I've read in years."--Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind
"This small town full of hooded figures, glowing clouds, cryptically terrifying public policies, and flickering realities quickly feels more like home than home. . . . There is nothing like Night Vale, in the best possible way."--Maureen Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Name of the Star
"They've done the unthinkable: merged the high weirdness and intense drama of Night Vale to the pages of a novel that is even weirder, even more intense than the podcast."--Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and coeditor of Boing Boing
