While perusing the dark corners of Pinterest I kept running across fan made drawings for a podcast called Welcome to Night vale. I had heard some rumblings on Tumblr about this podcast and finally let my curiosity go and looked up Night Vale on Podbay. Twenty three episodes in and I was in love with Cecil Palmer’s voice, the Faceless old lady, the vague yet menacing government agency, and the strange goings one of this town in a far off desert town where all conspiracy stories are real. I now eagerly await the new episodes that come out twice a month, one on the 14 and the second on the last day of the month.

Episodes of night vale tend to consist of  three to four segments, news, weather, traffic, and community announcements. New relays what is going on in the small desert community, weather features a new band for the episode, and traffic , at least in this episode is about a car crash, and community announcements tend to me announcements from the vague yet menacing government agency or the mayor’s office. While this all sound like thing’s you would expect to be hearing on a community radio station do not forget that this is Night Vale. A place where , Hiram McDaniel’s (a five headed dragon, who once ran for mayor of night vale) and the Faceless old lady (who lives in your house) exist and run for manorial campaigns.

This month’s episode, Hatchets came out on the 14th of February. Cecil’s menacing yet vaguely calming voice explains the goings on of the town, beginning with Cecil’s announcement that the Night Vale Daily Journal will be printing actual newspapers again. In Cecil’s soft voice he states “They will once again have the tyranny of a printed daily edition where all the stories will be immovable declarations of recent history told by a bias and an underpaid third party”. The hatchet wielding newspaper writer battles against those taking the jobs of those who work on digital writing plat forms (blogger). The Traffic section of this episode features and accident on the corner of Hallows Road and Great Hills drive, with two drivers that stand apart from their cars looking at the mangled mess of the two that became “ a spiteful fiery beast born of the mundane haste”. As the episode goes on Ciecil gives a lesson on the internet bots and the impending war that will soon come from the vague yet menacing government agencies use of the towns folks personal data. His editorial moves than into the creation of a law that makes all personal data public. Next Cecil delivers the weather and the end of the show.

And with the words, “Good Night Vale , Good Night” we as listeners are left feeling more uneasy and yet vaguely comforted by the story of the day. The end of the Podcast is the creator Joseph Fink, letting us listeners know that the book they have been working on will be coming out in October 2015. I am in anticipation for this Novel and can’t wait to hold it in my hands and read its unsettling yet comforting stories.