Welcome to Night Vale (novel)

The Man in the Tan Jacket is back in Night Vale and he has been leaving strange pieces of paper with people, all of which say "King City". While Night Vale is used to the strange and bizarre, the Man in the Tan Jacket's arrival puts the town at odds. Jackie Fierro, the owner of the town pawn shop, is determined to figure out the mystery behind both the man and the paper. Meanwhile, Diane Crayton has her own issues: her son has been changing and while this is average for most teenage boys, her son is literally a shape shifter and looks different each time she sees him. When she begins to see her son's father around town and Josh begins to show new interest in the man, Diane knows that this cannot end well.

Critical reception for Welcome to Night Vale has been positive and the novel was one of the Washington Post's top science-fiction and fantasy picks for October 2015.[2][3][4] Cory Doctorow praised the novel in his review at Boing Boing, stating "Shot through it all is the love and integrity that made Night Vale a success from the beginning. After 400 pages, some of Night Vale's mysteries have been laid bare, we've been initiated into new ones, and most of all, we know that we're in the midst of some wonderful people."[5] In contrast, The A.V. Club gave Welcome to Night Vale a grade of C+, criticizing Fink and Cranor for including too many references from the podcast, which they felt "reduces the plot’s progression to a crawl". They also wrote that the book improved in the later chapters, writing that it became "a wonderfully creepy tale filled with revelations about the nature of the town and its residents. Those tantalizing final few chapters provide a glimpse of what Fink and Cranor might be capable of when freed of the constraints of making references and allowed to just tell a story in their fascinating setting."[6]

• Official website