Local author G. Willow Wilson won two small armies of fans with her conspiracy-minded comic books (Air, Cairo, Superman) and a memoir documenting her conversion to Islam. Tonight she celebrates the release of her debut novel, Alif the Unseen, about an Arab Indian hacker battling a Middle Eastern surveillance state. Wilson will read and then The Stranger’s resident feckless book snob, Paul Constant, will talk with her about Alif, which is part techno-thriller and part weird fiction, inspiring enthusiastic reviewers to drop comparisons with Neal Stephenson and Neil Gaiman and maybe some non-Neal authors, too. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, www.elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free)