It Devours!

A Welcome to Night Vale Novel

By: Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

Narrated by: Cecil Baldwin

From the authors of the New York Times bestselling novel Welcome to Night Vale and the creators of the #1 international podcast of the same name, comes a mystery exploring the intersections of faith and science, the growing relationship between two young people who want desperately to trust each other, and the terrifying, toothy power of the Smiling God.

Nilanjana Sikdar is an outsider to the town of Night Vale. Working for Carlos, the town’s top scientist, she relies on fact and logic as her guiding principles. But all of that is put into question when Carlos gives her a special assignment investigating a mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. This investigation leads her to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, and to Darryl, one of its most committed members. Caught between her beliefs in the ultimate power of science and her growing attraction to Darryl, she begins to suspect the Congregation is planning a ritual that could threaten the lives of everyone in town. Nilanjana and Darryl must search for common ground between their very different world views as they are faced with the Congregation’s darkest and most terrible secret.

Just as wonderful and quirky as WTNV

Having Cecil narrate was honestly the best decision they could have made. Absolutely love it!

always love Cecil and Welcome to Night Vale

Welcome to Night Vale is one of my top favorite podcasts. The novels do not disappoint.

SCIENCE!

This was a great listen. Following the scientists' investigations into the church of the Smiling God, this book is a great introduction to Night Vales citizens!

Not bad. Sometimes a normal narration works best.

I don't want to more or less put a wall of text but this audiobook is definitely a downgrade from the first novel's audiobook when it came to its features. And yet it works better this way because we have more time to imagine the stuff we want to hear and Cecil Baldwin was always an awesome performer so you won't really get bored.

Also, I won't spoil you guys with the plot of the novel... because it's really a novel that you gotta read/hear to get. For the new people who don't know about the NV podcast, perfect opportunity to listen to WTNV after this book... or just brush up some info from the Night Vale Wiki because you will need the info from Years 2 to 4 to get some of the details in context.

If you guys want in detail stuff...

As there isn't much hype for the It Devours audiobook in favor of showing more picturesque tracts in the printed novel, the audiobook doesn't put in the music from Disparition (aside from the opening and a small scene), the interlude scenes of Cecil discussing the events in his radioshow akin to the NV Podcast, and the guest voices that the first novel had. Instead, we are given Cecil Baldwin narrating and reading the story himself in almost silence.

Maybe the silence has created this freedom to put in our own musical creative outputs or making us have time to imagine in our heads what we feel would have worked in this situation or that situation... creating our own atmosphere and emotion that Night Vale was about: imagining your own creative output.

We also get Cecil narrating characters that he does when he narrates what the characters say in the podcast. Sheriff Sam has their British accent, which the VA actually does, or Gregory having a stern strong southern twang in his accent. Like that sorta thing is an adorable advantage to the audiobook. Cecil Baldwin was always a great performer and we neve really got bored when we hear him, though there will be scenes that he should be extremely angry for some characters that would create the tone that the character is angry... but then again I need to realize that he is reading a book.

If you guys have no time with your eyes and more on the ears. Pick this audiobook up. They won't have the pretty pictures, but you get more Cecil being great. Plus it's time to pick an awesome playlist to accompany you when you listen.

Great!

A great entry into the mythos. Cecil Baldwin's performance was excellent. An easy, enjoyable train read.