Noise

Part road trip, part dark dystopia that starts in Denton, Texas. This story focuses on violent escape from collapsing society interspersed with flashbacks of a basically good kid. We don't find out what changed, and that leaves the story lifeless.

Hiram trains with his friend for an apocalypse coming soon, but they are not preppers. Their focus is The Book, a manifesto about establishing a new society after the Event. Interestingly, that event is warned about by Salvage, and anarchic group - the opposite focus of The Book. The story is told in timeline format with many flashbacks and not a lot of action. The apocalyptic focus reminds me of The Death of Grass, though that was a much better book.

One third of the novel's blurb points out how Salvage uses the unused analog airwaves to air their anarchic signal. They do, but that's not the focus - and this clever trick isn't explained beyond this mention. The characters are flat, and the only "growth" is between current day Hiram and his flashback self - not at all detailed. The ending is abrupt.

This is the first novel from Darin Bradley, and a Q&A in the back of my copy points out that the early Hiram is semi-autobiographical. Written in 2008, the Event feels a lot closer today. I just hope our future is a brighter than the one described here. 2½ stars.