Hello all! I am so excited to be presenting one of my all time favorite series today, Tales From The Gas Station. This is, to me, the epitome of online horror turned published series. I finally got my hands on a copy of Volume 4 (which was near impossible to do without an Amazon account) and I jumped at the chance to revisit the entire series.
I’ve been feeling so nostalgic lately for this creepypasta/Reddit/YouTube Narration era of horror and am so grateful to Pamela for letting me share that love with you in this series of reviews.
History of The Series
This is a book review, not a full deep dive, so I won’t get into the entire timeline of reposting and switching domains and all the craziness that was being a fan of this series when it was first hosted online.
But.
I feel like it’s important in my sales pitch of the series to explain that this did start as a thread on r/nosleep originally. It found popularity and grew into its own, weird thing, that still pays homage to that interactive element by including a role for fans of the story.
One thing I think Townsend does brilliantly in adapting his creepypasta/Reddit content into a book is paying that homage in a way that works well as a self- contained story.
You can start here, at Volume One, and you’re going to get a complete experience. This is something that is so rare in adaptations, especially as it does also include Easter Eggs for long-time fans who used to follow this story online.
My Recommendation
There are so many people I would recommend this to. It contains deeply unsettling content, serious themes, Lovecraftian style elder creatures, cults, violence, action, strangeness, and it’s all wrapped up in a big blanket of levity that keeps it feeling surprisingly light. It has lines that are laugh-out-loud funny even in its darkest plot points and that is such a rare balance to maintain.
If you liked Welcome to Night Vale, or enjoyed the Shudder original Glorious, I would rank this as a must-read for you.
This is a further stretch, but if you ever wanted Discworld or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to have a horror equivalent, Tales From the Gas Station is probably as close as you’re going to get. It offers hope, dread, laughs, and the occasional existential crisis.
Synopsis
Those of you who have read my reviews on here know that I typically don’t leave synopses for the books I read. I am a big believer that you should go into a book as blind as possible. I am going to make an exception here because I will be talking about an entire series of books, and feel like it’s important to explain some of the themes and content that differentiate them as I go.
Volume One of Tales From the Gas Station chronicles the life of our beloved, but unreliable, narrator Jack as he tries to survive his overnight gas station shifts. This is made an almost impossible task because of his fatal insomnia condition and the weird, unexplainable events that always seem to happen in and around the building. He starts cataloguing his experiences for the internet only to draw unwanted attention to himself and the anomalies in his life.
What Worked For Me
Basically, everything about this book is a win for me. I love the absurd content and the style that it’s presented in. Here are a few things that elevate it all the more.
The Gas Station
Almost all of the story takes place inside the gas station. This is something that could become stale quickly if it were not such an interesting location. It pairs the grimy, sleazy southern vibes with a strange sense of wonder and lingering dread that keeps the reader constantly guessing as to what will happen next.
The World-Building
Even though we don’t get to see much of the surrounding setting in this debut volume of the series, I love how the outside world comes to us. The characters have their own ties to others that you can tell have an outside impact on the gas station and the people inside.
A great example of this is the Mathmatist cult, whose members we see passing through Jack’s checkout from time to time. They believe in a complex balance of decreasing suffering and increasing happiness, which leads them to speculate that blowing up the world is for the greater good. This is such a rich plot point for something fleeting, and is one of about a dozen examples that make the world feel fully fleshed out and unique, even though we only see a sliver of it.
Jack
Jack is one of my all-time favorite characters in fiction. I like that he’s not a traditional hero. We root for him, we sympathize with him, but he’s exceptionally flawed. He has no ambition, and we meet him at a point in his life where he’s given up on most things, including himself.
“… I have a rare, terminal illness and a life expectancy best measured in dog years.”
His fatal condition means that he doesn’t have much regard for his own life and what he wants more than anything is to be comfortable in the time he has. While this could get tired quickly, it creates interesting friction with the role of “hero” that the gas station encounters are constantly trying to thrust him into
He is a protagonist who survives solely by dumb luck, and is quick to admit it.
“The sheer number of people in my life that have somehow failed to outlive me is, in a word, incredible.”
He does the bare minimum, makes terrible decisions, but there’s something so endearing and honest about the way he keeps picking himself back up just to hold onto what little he has left. He doesn’t make radical changes or find inspiration, he just keeps going. It’s so comforting to see survival portrayed as enough.
If I can get personal for a moment, I also relate to Jack. While my case obviously isn’t terminal, insomnia is something that I struggle with. There are scenes where he opens up about the side effects and struggles and overwhelming sense of exhaustion that come with not sleeping. Those scenes, though few and far between, always resonate so deeply with me, and make me so grateful for the sleep I do have.
The Supporting Cast
I absolutely adore all the characters in this. Jack is my favorite, but everyone that comes through the gas station, be they a good guy, a mad guy, or something in between, is so full of personality. There are protagonists we’re rooting for. There are villains we love to hate. There are weirdos who are never explained. All of them are shrouded in a surprisingly down-to-earth, realistic level of moral complexities that make them feel like actual people, regardless of how exaggerated their archetype.
The Subversion of Expectations
This story never quite goes where I think it’s going, and I love that. The constant twisting of traditional narrative arcs and quirky characters make each new development a surprise. It has the feel of a tabletop game, there are recurring comedic bits and strange creatures, but at the end of the day, everyone is going to react differently to the situations presented.
It’s obviously a very speculative and impossible story, but it resonates on such a human level sometimes that you can almost believe you’re reading the first hand account of something that actually happened.
The Audiobook
I usually only talk about the story itself, but I just have to geek out over the audio book as well. It is narrated by MrCreepyPasta, who also did the YouTube narrations back when this was a r/nosleep series.
Not only does he do a phenomenal job bringing Jack and the other characters to life, but it was an amazing callback for long time fans of the series. There are very few audiobooks I recommend specifically, but if you have the chance to listen to this book, it’s well worth it.
Conclusion
I think that wraps up my thoughts about the first book. Every element is so well done for new readers and old time fans of the project alike. The writing is exceptional, the story is fantastic, and I think there’s a character for everyone to root for, whether that be Jack or one of the supporting cast.
It’s such a wild ride, and I really hope you consider taking a chance on it as we head into a spookier season.
For my next review I’ll be continuing with this series, and in the meantime, happy reading!
More of Cat’s Book Reviews
Cat Voleur is a published writer of dark, speculative fiction and full-time horror journalist. In addition to freelancing scripts and articles on the genre, you can find her co-hosting the Slasher Radio podcast. She currently resides in a house with her army of rescue felines. When she isn’t writing, gaming, or consuming horror content, she will undoubtedly be pursuing her passion for fictional languages. You can find Cat’s work on her website, and don’t forget to follow her on Twitter. If you’re interested in learning more about Cat, check out her origin story.
