There’s a truism that the more things change, the more things stay the same. This is especially true of science fiction, where despite advances in technology and the like, many aspects of society are still familiar to us. Part of this lies with the need for readers to identify with characters in a story – if a story is too alien, only the most hard-core science fiction reader will remain interested. And while it may be understandable for post-apocalyptic stories (which very often are grounded in the science fiction genre) to retain elements of pre-apocalyptic culture, I still find it a tad disconcerting seeing some truly familiar settings in such stories.

I stumbled across White Noise thanks to its inclusion in the female webcartoonist collective Tomgeeks. The story takes place over a hundred years after aliens invaded the Earth, devastating the surface and performing genetic experiments on the human survivors of the apocalypse. If we’d never learned what the aliens did to devastate the planet, I’d have been much happier. The science fiction purist in me cringed upon hearing of the alien technology (which violates several laws of physics). Fortunately, it’s only a background detail and not exactly important to the story at hand. The story focuses on two people, Lohaun and Wren, who are fleeing from the destruction of the domed city where they lived.

Naturally enough, the destroyers are other humans… in this case a group of humans who believe in human purity and are determined to kill off those humans who are continuing the alien genetics program (allegedly to fight off the aliens in case they return). Wren is one of those human-born experiments, possessing a furry prehensile tail, along with strange dreams of an odd white-furred creature named Winter, possessing a tail much like his own. Lohaun fills the obligatory role of the adult trying to keep her ward ignorant of what’s going on in an attempt to protect him (which doesn’t work very well). It’s the characters that help bring WN to life; this is important seeing that the plot has taken a while to build. But if you like epic storytelling and aren’t a science fiction purist, then White Noise will likely be an enjoyable addition to your reading selection.