Welcome to Cyber Vale by Hubris_And_Crafts (PG)
Title: Welcome to Cyber Vale
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Dana/Leann, Kevin/Original Male Character
Categories/Genres: Alternate Universe, Sci Fi, Action/Adventure, Romance, Fluff, Humor, Amnesia, Mystery
Length: Epic (49906 words)
Warnings: Very temporary character death
Author/Artist on LJ: N/A
Author/Artist Website: Hubris_And_Crafts
Summary:
Based on an AU SciFi concept by freedomconvicted on tumblr. Carlos is a scientist who has been called in to assist with C.E.C.I.L, an A.I. that runs the artificial planet known as the Vale Colony. However, none of his superiors bothered to inform him that the A.I. appears to be completely insane. And prone to falling in love.
Review:
When is a Night Vale not a Night Vale? When it's a Night Vale in space!
I've always been a fan of science fiction, a love instilled in me in the early days of reading when at least a dozen of my father's science fiction books were lying around at any given time. So for there to be a full-length sci fi AU of Night Vale? Well, sign me up!
The fictional future of Welcome to Cyber Vale is a subtly realized world, left mostly blank for the reader's imagination to fill in, assisted by the little tidbits of information that are fed to us, mostly by casual mention of the characters. It's minimalist worldbuilding, which seemed a little odd to me as a veteran sci fi reader, until I realized that that very minimalism is precisely characteristic of the canonical Welcome to Night Vale itself.
It's that very sense of in-character atmosphere that makes this fic stand out among the many Alternate Universe fics I've read. So much of the time, writers will take characters out of their original canon to put them in settings and circumstances that bear little to no resemblance to the source setting. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. I can think of few things more thrilling than seeing how a character exists in and reacts to a world they weren't originally created in. But Hubris_And_Crafts's ability to write so many parallels with canon while creating a world new and different took my breath away. I found myself grinning at all the characters and their familiar quirks and laughing with excitement at all the phrases and stories lifted from the canon to be given new homes in this new universe. Reading Cyber Vale, everything was the same even while nothing was the same.
And that's the very charm of Welcome to Night Vale itself, I think. That sometimes things that are so strange can be so comfortingly familiar in spite of their alienness.
Welcome to Cyber Vale
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Dana/Leann, Kevin/Original Male Character
Categories/Genres: Alternate Universe, Sci Fi, Action/Adventure, Romance, Fluff, Humor, Amnesia, Mystery
Length: Epic (49906 words)
Warnings: Very temporary character death
Author/Artist on LJ: N/A
Author/Artist Website: Hubris_And_Crafts
Summary:
Based on an AU SciFi concept by freedomconvicted on tumblr. Carlos is a scientist who has been called in to assist with C.E.C.I.L, an A.I. that runs the artificial planet known as the Vale Colony. However, none of his superiors bothered to inform him that the A.I. appears to be completely insane. And prone to falling in love.
Review:
When is a Night Vale not a Night Vale? When it's a Night Vale in space!
I've always been a fan of science fiction, a love instilled in me in the early days of reading when at least a dozen of my father's science fiction books were lying around at any given time. So for there to be a full-length sci fi AU of Night Vale? Well, sign me up!
The fictional future of Welcome to Cyber Vale is a subtly realized world, left mostly blank for the reader's imagination to fill in, assisted by the little tidbits of information that are fed to us, mostly by casual mention of the characters. It's minimalist worldbuilding, which seemed a little odd to me as a veteran sci fi reader, until I realized that that very minimalism is precisely characteristic of the canonical Welcome to Night Vale itself.
It's that very sense of in-character atmosphere that makes this fic stand out among the many Alternate Universe fics I've read. So much of the time, writers will take characters out of their original canon to put them in settings and circumstances that bear little to no resemblance to the source setting. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. I can think of few things more thrilling than seeing how a character exists in and reacts to a world they weren't originally created in. But Hubris_And_Crafts's ability to write so many parallels with canon while creating a world new and different took my breath away. I found myself grinning at all the characters and their familiar quirks and laughing with excitement at all the phrases and stories lifted from the canon to be given new homes in this new universe. Reading Cyber Vale, everything was the same even while nothing was the same.
And that's the very charm of Welcome to Night Vale itself, I think. That sometimes things that are so strange can be so comfortingly familiar in spite of their alienness.
Welcome to Cyber Vale