2011/18: Declare -- Tim Powers

Declare -- Tim Powers
Declare -- Tim Powers

... the SIS Beirut station picked up a heavy traffic on the service bandwidth: it was en clair, but they thought it must be code because it was all nursery rhymes -- 'the man in the moon came down too soon', 'how many miles to Babylon' -- that kind of thing. The SIS triangulated the signal and found that it seemed to originate in the Bashura cemetary, but they could never find a transmitter, and the signal faded after a month, and they blamed the vagaries of the Heaviside Layer; but we in Declare knew that it was St John's ghost, catching hell from the Moslem angels. (p. 467)

( very slightly spoilery review )

2011/19 and 20: The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men -- Patrick Ness

The Ask and the Answer
Monsters of Men

That's the secret of this planet, Todd. Communication, real and open, so we can finally understand each other for once.
I clear my throat. "Women don't got Noise," I say. "What'll happen to them?"
He stops. I'd forgotten ... if there's a way for men to stop having Noise, there must be a way for women to start. (Monsters of Men, p.453)

I'm discussing both novels in a single post because I read them back to back, and it's hard to separate out some aspects.
( non-spoilery review )