Mostly Void, Partially Stars – Welcome to Night Vale, Episodes Volume 1, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

“Welcome to Night Vale” it says on the cover. Inside, there are stories about the town of “Night Vale”, somewhere in a desert in America, where strange things happen. Everything is normal. But at the same time, everything is surreal and weird. Every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard of is being played out there. In every chapter, “Cecil Gershwin Palmer”, the town’s community radio announcer, broadcasts the happenings in the town – what inexplicable thing has appeared or never actually happened (since it was a mass hallucination); places that do or don’t exist; aliens that run for mayor; a mayor who is an alien; a scientist, new in town, called “Carlos”, with beautiful hair and “teeth like tombstones in a military cemetery” who comes to investigate the place; angels; glowing clouds that rain down dead animals, and so on. You know, just a typical day in small-town USA. (Continue reading…)