Literature / noise

"Hiram" and "Levi" are two Texan, D&D playing, and very disaffected college students living in the small university town of Slade. Unlike most college students, however, they have a Plan - a capital P plan. See, after the switch from Analog TV to Digital TV broadcasting, the abandoned airwaves were taken over by Salvage, an anarchic collection of survivalists, radio enthusiasts, and graffitists broadcasting and repeating weak signals with cheap equipment. Through Salvage, "Hiram" and "Levi" can get the news of what's really happening in the world, and more importantly, a distorted but workable Plan to survive and thrive in the aftermath.

So with that, Hiram and Levi and more fight their way through the collapsing government, and more importantly, dozens of others with their own Plans.

This book by first-time author Darin Bradley has been described as "Lord of the Flies meets The Zombie Survival Guide (without zombies)", and that's probably a fair description. Published in August 2010.

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Noise contains examples of:

• A Darker Me: Followers of the Plan(s) do this in real life, to the extent of making up pseudonyms and painting their faces. It's an exploit of psychology to make it easier for them to kill people.
• Analysis: Oddly, the author (a PhD in English) includes a short analysis of his own novel in the back.

• Apocalypse How: Class 0. It's implied to be some kind of farming problem, and there's no real reason to believe that it affected anywhere outside of North America.
• Cozy Catastrophe: The Plan basically boils down to enforcing this, by declaring everybody outside the group an enemy whose welfare is ignorable.
• Facial Markings: Near everybody, which is discussed and justified.

• The Promised Land: The Place. Yes, that's what it's called.

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