I’ve just read your It Devours! liveblog. What if the book takes place in one of the other Night Vale’s that all fell into each other when Huntokar tried to save her own Night Vale? It would explain the inconsistences with the podcast
I wondered this myself! The timing does work out, since it’s set before the end of year five. There’s just two problems:
1) There are no other hints that this is an AU besides the inconsistencies, which is frustrating and conflicts with Finknor trying to make the novel accessible to new audiences
2) There’s no payoff for it? Literally nothing in It Devours! is changed by it being in an AU (the characters and basic set up of Night Vale are identical) and none of the current episodes of WTNV are affected by it either. I suppose they could be building up to something, but that’s a weirdly long time to wait for a resolution. Like, when they tied in with the last novel, the episode came out before the book.
So either they didn’t care about being consistent with canon, or they didn’t care about making it clear it was an AU and have it tie in with the plot in a meaningful way. Neither of which is really satisfying, lol.
I have a lot of fondness for the first WTNV novel, but overall I thought this was a huge improvement: the plot starts with a bang and keeps you interested while we meet the new characters, there’s cool stuff about old characters, and it dovetails from a previous plot I at least was really interested in learning more about.
Up to the last five chapters, I really enjoyed this! I think Nils is an awesome main character (terrible hazmat procedures aside). The world definitely needs more badass science ladies of color, and I thought they did a good job showing how that informs her worldview, and how she’s able to put her intelligence to use while doing all sorts of cool plot stuff. Her character arc was also pretty interesting: she goes from being lonely to actively pursuing all sorts of personal connections, but not in a weird gendered “you need a man to have a full life!” way. Her growing friendship with Carlos and her sense of community with Night Vale are just as important as her romance with Darryl (which ends up being a friendship anyway).
Speaking of Darryl: apart from all the stuff I complained about, I actually liked a lot of what we saw of the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God. Darryl was a nice dude who actually learned stuff, and his belief in his family was fully justified. I also thought they did a good job portraying some of the kinds of people you run into in church, from those who rely on it for family, to those who are really into its theology and want to pursue leadership, to those who are creepy and oppressive and totally fine with the world getting eaten by centipedes.
It was also really awesome to get so much stuff about Carlos, especially from a new POV. His friendship with Nils is SUPER cute, and while I hated the execution, I appreciated that they went for an ambitious arc where his main attribute – his love of science – started working against him.
Also: HELO <3 <3 <3
Unfortunately, while 87.6% (yes that’s an actual number) of this book was totally solid, the last 12.4% of it just kind of fell apart. I couldn’t appreciate a lot of the plot twists because they don’t make much sense with what we already know, and while it’s a creator’s prerogative to retcon stuff if they feel it makes a better story, they changed SO MUCH it just made me question their abilities as storytellers.
If they didn’t think the stuff with Strex Corp and Carlos in the desert otherworld and countless other details were worth keeping, then… why do they even want us to listen to the show, again? On the other hand, it was impossible to tell if those changes were deliberate, so it’s also possible they just… forgot. Their own canon. This is unconscionable in a professionally published novel. Fans do a better job with this for free in their spare time.
Add that to their unthinking perpetuation of anti-woman biases in STEM, the hacky dissolution of Nils/Darryl, and the nonsensical ending, and it undercuts a lot of the book’s good points.
So, yeah, for better or for worse, this is classic Night Vale: neat characters, weird shit, SCIENCE!, and a questionable finish.
