It Devours!: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel

I was very excited to receive my copy of "The Official Biography of Helen Hunt" in the mail, but when I opened my package, all I found was shredded paper, gruesome ink stains, and a copy of "It Devours!" Never one to judge a book by it's previous actions, I began to read it and enjoyed to story (despite the FALSE allegations concerning the existence of mountains). However, I have noticed in recent days that my copy of "The Official Biography of Sean Penn," which was shelved next to "It Devours!", has vanished. I'm feeling very afraid for the safety of my books. No, not afraid, concerned.

Welcome to Night Vale is a quirky podcast that some folks jokingly refer to as Twin Peaks for queer people. This second novel in the series surpassed the first in my opinion, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Nilanjana was a great main character. I love the role of scientists in this series--how they are, ridiculously, sort of like celebrities, and are presented as though they are always jockeying for awards and cannot wear any clothes but lab coats. Nilanjana works with Carlos, husband of Night Vale's radio host Cecil, voice of the podcast. It's really cool to get a peek into what goes on in the lab, and in Carlos's head, through Nilanjana's perspective.

Basically in this book we're dealing with a mysterious force that's destroying Night Vale sites with little warning, sucking them down into pits that open up into a desert otherworld. Nilanjana helps Carlos investigate, and though she feels she's getting closer to an answer the more she snoops, she's also getting personally more invested in the situation and more exposed to danger. Nilanjana befriends and eventually gets romantic with a very unscientific person: Darryl, who is a true believer in the Church of the Smiling God. He too wants to know whether his church is involved with some of the dangerous happenings, and he's rather torn between loyalty to the church that raised him and the hard questions Nilanjana is asking.

I love that the relationships, in such a weird world, are so recognizably human. Sometimes scientists can be wrong, and be in denial that they're wrong, and put people in danger because they're in denial that they're wrong. Sometimes relationships that have all the ingredients for happily ever after do not get to the ever after part. Sometimes survivors have guilt that spurs them to action. Sometimes a legacy is a celebration and a desperate act at the same time. Sometimes being disappointed in potatoes can be a plot point.

Just like the podcast, this book unexpectedly hits the audience with poignant truths out of nowhere so you (well, me) will end up crying on the bus. It's also absurd and laugh-out-loud funny at times. Sometimes it's just a phrase. Sometimes it's a situation that's been orchestrated from the beginning to pay off as funny toward the end. I just really love the tone chosen for this universe.

The only complaint I really have is that at one point toward the beginning Nilanjana is labeled as someone who's pretty antisocial and has some coping issues, which has precluded her doing much in terms of relationship pursuits, but then it's basically said that obviously she's human so she did a little dating, has been with people, etc. It's sort of upsetting to me that a franchise that normalizes same-sex relationships and is even willing to include a regular nonbinary character who uses they/them pronouns continues to make missteps regarding asexuality and aromanticism, as well as just you know, anyone who might not want to have a relationship. It's not the default that all people do this, and it is not one of the things that makes us human (or less human if we don't do it). I hope they'll make a note of that soon.

Favorite quotes and concepts:

1. "The usual things a downtown has: city hall, community radio station, hooded figures, a library, a shimmering vortex blocked off with yellow police tape, dangerous stray dogs, and propaganda loudspeakers on every corner."

2. DuBois spoke from a place of moral and physical authority to the intellectuals and politicians who stood in the way of equal rights for black Americans. He also spoke from the back of a flying dragon.

3. The fact that history doesn't exist because it's no longer happening.

4. That scientists are always expected to be glamorous and attractive.

5. The empty-eyed child messengers that you then basically have to take care of for a while until someone collects them.

6. There's this whole description of how the moon landing was faked, but it actually wasn't, and actually the director of the whole thing was a hologram, and the landing did happen but the government was hiding that they'd been out to blow the moon up, not just visit it.

7. Nilanjana has this really funny series of thoughts where she develops hypotheses, and at one point it reads like this: "Hypothesis: Shit."

8. A really poignant, somehow relatable bit about repressed PTSD came up in an anecdote about a boy who escaped Night Vale and had a really pretty normal life, but couldn't understand why he collapsed from emotional turmoil when his fortieth birthday took place at a pizza joint. (He'd been a young witness to Big Rico's Pizza disappearing into a pit.)

9. I really like that Nilanjana found Larry's diorama. It made me really sad that he invested so much in his work and then he figured it was all destroyed when his house was eaten.

10. "One of the most important parts of growing up, and of approaching the world as an adult, was understanding the difference between likable and good, and recognizing that one often had no effect on the other."

11. "He texted Jamillah about what had happened and she texted back the cry-laughing emoji, followed by the orange tree on fire emoji, followed by the child walking through the contemporary sculpture wing of the art museum emoji."

12. I really love the scene with Nilanjana comforting the helicopter!

13. The bit about trying to get a haunting license because ghosts are cool was funny.

14. I like that Nilanjana and Darryl had a realistic-sounding conversation about religion. He believes because he cares about community and he wants to see life as meaningful. Usually if the perspective character is a nonbeliever, there will be no convincing, compelling reasoning from the other party. But Darryl's reasons for believing sound like what people really offer as reasoning.

15. Apparently a science game that exists in Night Vale is called "Is That Beaker Going to Explode?"

16. Luisa throwing potatoes and being proud of them destroyed her experiment because it was supposed to be about what happens to potatoes when you are vocally and physically disappointed in them all the time.

17. I thought the helicopter helping Nilanjana's team was a great gut-punch after they'd bonded, but then he also comments that his ex-boyfriend accused him of having no emotional intelligence and I was just startled out of the feelsy interaction by laughing.

Anyway, it's this really peculiar mixture of super creepy, funny, and touching. I recommend it to Night Vale fans, but I also recommend it to people who don't know anything about the franchise. It's quite readable without the background, and you can rest assured that if something confuses you, it confuses the rest of us too. :)

I mean, if you are a fan, you already own it. But the design! The colors! The endpaper art! It is a thing of creepy beauty. A THING. CREEPY. BEAUTY!

We should all be allowed our guilty reading pleasures now and again. I apparently have at least three: the extended Dune saga, written by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert; the never ending Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card; and what appears to be a new guilty reading pleasure, the Welcome to Night Vale novels. There really is no justification for the various guilty reading pleasures - well, maybe there is. In the case of Dune and Ender, I'm something of a completist as well as an eternal optimist. In both of these cases, not only have I read all the other books in the series (Well, sort of in the case of Ender. I haven't read the Ender books that are collaborations between Card and someone else.), but I keep hoping against hope that the books will be good.

And then there's Night Vale. I've been reflecting on my reading cycle during the year, and it generally involves reading the Hugo finalists as well as trying to stay ahead of the game when it comes to the next year's finalists. There is also the occasional ARC that I read that the publishers are nice enough to let me have copies of. Out of the 30+ books I've read this year (Yeah, I know. I'm a slow reader. That's just the way it is.), there are just a few that I've picked up because I was looking for something to read that I didn't have a commitment for. I need a break in my reading. Something silly, something light, something that isn't up for an award or has won an award in the past or just might be up for an award. That something is Night Vale.

If you are unfamiliar or indeed haven't heard about the wildly popular podcast "Welcome to Night Vale", please go take a few minutes to look it up and see what it's about. I can wait. I'll be right here when you get back. Got it? Good.

IT DEVOURS is the second Welcome to Night Vale novel. The first one takes a lot of time and effort to introduce all the characters that the podcast has introduced, with the effect that the novel is slowed down considerably until all the introductions are out of the way. The other thing that made the first book a bit of a slog was that it wasn't in the form of a radio broadcast as narrated by Cecil. IT DEVOURS has neither of those problems, and thus it flows more freely and readily than the first. However, that doesn't mean the novel is all that much better than the first.

There have been loud rumblings in the outskirts of the town of Night Vale, as holes open up and whole buildings are swallowed into the earth. Carlos, Cecil's husband, is a scientist that is investigating the rumbling disturbances. One of his assistants, Nilanjana Sikdar (who, as I've just learned, actually appeared - or was mentioned - in episode 107 of the podcast), is assigned by Carlos to investigate the sites of the disturbances while he continues his experiments and investigations in the lab. The investigation involves The Congregation of the Smiling God, the house that doesn't exist, the desert wasteland, the dog park, and the lighthouse on the top of the mountain. The Congregation believes that their Smiling God will come and devour everyone's sins. Nilanjana learns that bit of information from Darryl, one of the Congregations most fervent believers. As the mutual attraction between Darryl and Nilanjana grows, she comes to the conclusion that the leader of the Congregation may be planning something more significant and sinister than the people of the church imagine.

That's the elevator pitch, of course, and while Fink and Cranor didn't write it, I think it does a reasonable job of selling the story - to fans of Night Vale. If you don't listen to Night Vale, this is just another ordinary mystery/thriller involving love, faith, and humor. There is a good amount of humor, and unlike the first Night Vale novel I laughed out loud a few times during IT DEVOURS. And to be fair, Fink and Cranor do deliver a twist to the story that was not, in my opinion, telegraphed in the least until just before it was revealed. However, nothing is really resolved here. And while there is conflict between the scientists, the Congregation, and the town of Night Vale itself, the resolution was not really what I would have expected.

I guess that's okay. Night Vale is a strange place, where nothing is as you'd expect it to be. I think that one thing I should be expecting, after outings, is that the novels are just okay. And I guess that's all a guilty pleasure needs to be anyway.

Good book if you love the Night Vale podcast.

OK WITH PRICE AND DELIVERY.

As huge fans of the Welcome to Night ale podcast fiance & I found this book incredibly enjoyable & can not wait for more. This is a bit darker than their last book.

I love the humor in the Nightvale books. It is very similar to the style of Hitchiker’s Guide, but more dystopian horror than sci-fi. I would highly recommend this or the other nightvale book if you enjoy that sort of thing. The book even delves into some serious issues affecting our society today such as the wild claims of some about the existence of mountains (seriously).

I love the podcast and the first Night Vale novel, but I struggled to get into this one. The first novel addressed issues and developed characters from the series, and I loved the more in depth look into their lives. Even though Carlos is in the story, and a few other characters from the podcast, I had some trouble caring for these new characters as much. This conflict between science and faith is very relevant, and even though Night Vale has satirical elements at times that address current issues, they are in the background, not taking away from the narrative. This time, the satirical element distracted from the narrative. I still enjoyed the book--enough to like it--but I unlike the first novel, I just kept finding myself wanting narrative to become central and not so guided by the satire of religion versus science conflict.

Great novel - if you love the Night Vale universe, you'll love this book. The writing is even tighter than in the first novel, and the science vs. religion conversation feels very relevant right now. Beautifully written as always.