How do you know you're living through an apocalypse? Zombies are a pretty good clue, as well as pervasive humanitarian crises and endless war. But one major indicator is rarely explicitly discussed, possibly because it feels too alarmingly real: the constant use of misinformation or withheld information to keep people either complacent or believing what most benefits the government. While Team S&S' Radio Storm does touch on all of the previously listed factors, it's the last that's the most chilling. It's hard to truly fight zombies, after all, when you aren't sure that the people in charge are any less bloodthirsty.

Our guides through this brave new world are Sak and Lima, two young men in very different circumstances. Sak is fortunate (or maybe “fortunate”) enough to have something called a Core – a supernatural power. Cores were first discovered not more than thirty years prior when a young girl named Hana manifested the ability to blow things up with her mind, but Sak's Core is, on the surface, much less impressive: he smells like plants. He also has a preternaturally good sense of smell, but since neither of those things appears strong or helpful on the surface, Sak is generally regarded as useless by his fellow Core users. He lives with them at the Academy, a school for both studying Cores and training people in their uses, and thanks to a cruel test imposed upon Sak and the Turner brothers at their entry interview, Sak is actively resented by other students. His only ally appears to be Ginger, a student who's already graduated and begun working as a researcher, but that really should make Sak question him more – if Sak knew to question anyone involved with the school at all, that is. But why would he, when they keep him safe and fed?

He meets Lima when Ginger, after revealing the existence of what is essentially a zombie plague, tells him about Callers, people who complement Core users and make their powers stronger. He sends Sak out into the apocalypse to find him, implying that it will keep him safe from the plague. Lima is a former child soldier and “rental child,” meaning a kid who was sold to beg for food and later forced to either amputate his own limb or pick up a gun and fight. Lima chose the latter and later escaped, but at a cost, and he's in no mood to trust the weird guy who suddenly showed up. But the more the two of them talk, the clearer it becomes, to both them and to us, that there's something strange going on here, and that a lot of people in power are deliberately holding back pertinent information.

As might be reasonably expected, Radio Storm is a very heavy story. The art emphasizes this in a very effective way: it's primarily in black and white, but every so often there are pops of color – Lima's purple eyes, the green of Sak's Core, the red of blood. These bright bursts highlight the grim reality of the story's world and function almost as small explosions on the page. They also make other elements stand out, such as the bloody handprints of zombie children or Sak's dark eyes in comparison to other characters' bright ones. It also helps to show how Sak's world is changing, and not necessarily for what he might think is better. While the Core/Caller relationship does immediately make him attached to Lima, other pieces of his world are falling apart. From his trust in the Academy to his perception of humanity. How much of this is something that Ginger was counting on begins to come clear in volume two, but the greater issue is what Sak will do about it. The Academy has a very specific view of who he is and how they expect him to react to things, but by turning him loose to find Lima, they relinquished their hold on him. And that means that what he'll do and how he'll react is no longer something they can predict – if they ever truly could.

Along with being a post-apocalyptic tale, Radio Storm is also BL, and both of those genre designations come with some content warnings. Lima and Sak's relationship does not start fully consensual, although I could see an argument for dubious consent rather than flat-out rape; the flip side holds true as well. (It does move into consensual, but the start may poison the well for some readers.) There's also plenty of child death in the story, and the world on the whole is bleak. There is some hope that things will change, and these two volumes are careful to make that a clear possibility, but this isn't the sort of series you pick up because you want an easy read.

I'm not entirely sure that I enjoyed these volumes, but I do think I want to read at least one more. Radio Storm is tough going, but something is fascinating and familiar about it, even as it tries to be its own spin on the genre. If you can stomach it, it is worth reading, but you have to be in the right frame of mind for what it has to offer.