It is centuries before the Kyrii and his adventures in Blame. It is time during which humanity has fallen low but still exists - at least in more consistent way.

When Susono Musubi, police inspector investigating children abductions loses her partner she discovers two things - strange satanic cult (W40K vibes all the way) using some weird technology and bodies (or parts of bodies) to bring to life what looks like Safeguard Exterminators from Blame and weird looking short sword that brings total destruction when she uses it for the first time. If one is familiar with the W40K then delivery of "time bomb" device with remains of children linked to cybernetic device and spawning of Exterminator like a warp demon brings parallels with the Chaos cults.

I wont go into more details because of spoilers. What I can say is that story shows origins of Net Terminal gene was introduced (too real for me considering trends in our crazy world), how Silicon Life came to be, and what was the goal of Safeguard (especially terrifying statement that humans without Net Terminal Gene will be terminated with extreme prejudice - and this was way before world as we know ti from Blame).

Ending is as grim as expected.

Excellent book, very atmospheric art and gotta admit more action and less introspection than original Blame volumes. Which was good for a change.

Great addition to fans of original Blame (although do not expect too many revelations) and Lovecraftian/W40K SF/fantasy horror. ( )

Tsutomu Nihei's eerily beautiful "Noise" is haunting and confounding in all the right ways. The already-thin tankoban is filled-out with a teaser chapter from [b:Blame|32321|Blame!, Vol. 1|Tsutomu Nihei|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1168388378s/32321.jpg|32513], so this one-shot is even shorter than it first appears. Fortunately, it's bigger on the inside.

Opening with a nod to Ghost in the Shell, it segues gracefully into Gungrave territory, then ends up in a place wholly its own (though with shades of Miyazaki). If one can compare paint to type (both artist ink, captured and recast with unclear fidelity), Noise felt reminiscent of Patricia McKillip's poetic blend of linguistic artifice: in turns unerringly precise, engraving a single unforgettable image into the mind's eye; then swiftly retreating into mist-shrouded ambiguity, drawing the reader after to fill the swirling void with nightmare details drawn from our own uniquely fevered imaginings.

That said, any literary comparisons must heft emotional weight and subtext alone, for in Noise, there are no words; precious few, anyway. One could string together all the dialog and narration from this slim volume and fit it into a single Danielewski footnote. The story is told almost exclusively through pictures; and as Scott McCloud would tell us, within the infinitely deeper gaps between.

Potentially trite manga boxes provide an unusually apropos framing metaphor for this tale of urban decay, as the visual backdrop throughout is one of misshapen architectural ambition gone awry. Lucas and Disney villains (now morbidly inbred) should tread with care, as unfathomable gulfs and ineffable chasms abound in this parallax world of concrete and steel immensities, where stories pile high in discordant gothic tiers. The ubiquitous sense of looming Brobdingnagian scale, referenced and incremented on nearly every sheaf, is not limited to space alone: time itself folds within these short pages.

I'm not sure what the title was intended to disclose, but I found it an evocative hint to Nihei's consistently gorgeous art. Working daily with optical spectra and other instrumented data, I am well-acquainted with the concept of "noise": ill-defined minutiae wrapping and obscuring signal, quasi-detail with equal parts random draw and content echo, hinting at levels of granularity just beyond your perception to resolve.

There is something of noise in Nihei's finely inked hallways and infinitely receding cityscapes, the creatures who stalk his cavernous galleries and towering stairways. Coarsely hatched fractal outlines, inner contours left to the interpretive mind to recurse and endlessly devolve, imply additional wealths of detail beyond the printer's art. This visual noise complements the consistent theme of scale, which dial spins both ways. ( )

The self-contained nature results in less filler, with the plot feeling more important to the actual volume than in BLAME!. On the other hand, the plot doesn't feel like it really leads anywhere or adds much, and is ultimately unsatisfying. ( )