  We review the attempts to construct black hole/string solutions in
asymptotically plane wave spacetimes. First, we demonstrate that geometries
admitting a covariantly constant null Killing vector cannot admit event
horizons, which implies that pp-waves can't describe black holes. However,
relaxing the symmetry requirements allows us to generate solutions which do
possess regular event horizons while retaining the requisite asymptotic
properties. In particular, we present two solution generating techniques and
use them to construct asymptotically plane wave black string/brane geometries.
