Surviving a massive alien siege is one thing-surviving humanity is another. I'm all cried out. I'm still alone. The sky is full of giant spinning black balls that kill anyone stupid enough to go outside. I've only been out of the car twice - once to pee and once to look at the sky. That one look was enough for me. Now I sit alone in the car, staring out the window like a rat in a cage. But I don't have anyone to look at. The parking garage is empty, except for twisted-up cars, broken glass and the smell of leaking gasoline. POD is the story of a global cataclysmic event, told from the view points of Megs, a 12-year-old streetwise girl trapped in a hotel parking garage in Los Angeles; and 16-year-old Josh, who is stuck in a house in Prosser, Washington, with his increasingly obsessive compulsive father. Food and water and time are running out. Will Megs survive long enough to find her mother? Will Josh and his father survive each other?
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
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In Prosser, Washington, 15-year-old Josh and his father awake to a screeching, ear-splitting noise, which, turns out, announces an alien occupation. Then the pods show up, giant spheres of pearl gray suspended in the sky, waiting. Anyone daring to venture outside his or her home is zapped. In L.A. that same morning, 12-year-old Megs says good-bye to her mother in a hotel parking garage. When the aliens arrive, Megs finds herself surviving off crumbs found in other cars. Wallenfels never shows readers the aliens. Though they seem bent on starving people out of their homes, the real horror is what humans do to each other. This is especially the case on Megs' side of the story. Thugs regulate the food, water, and medicine supply inside the hotel; separate families; and kill anyone challenging their authority. However, the dire circumstances don't negate the humor, the hormones, or the humanity found in the young narrators. This is solid, straightforward sci-fi—unfortunately, a rarity in these times when vampires and zombies reign unchecked. Grades 8-11. --Courtney Jones
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
Stephen Wallenfels lives in the sunny desert of eastern Washington with his wife and, when the stars align, his Seattle-based son. He is the marketing and IT director at a large health club, but also works as a freelance writer specializing in the health and fitness industry. Stephen enjoys any sport involving a ball and a racquet. He likes to camp, cook, and read—preferably at the same time. POD is his first novel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent teen SF,
By
This review is from: Pod (Kindle Edition)
POD by Stephen Wallenfels is a gripping story told in alternating first person chapters by a teenage boy and a twelve-year-old girl. Earth has been invaded by alien, gigantic spheres that hover in the air and destroy any human who ventures outside.
Josh is trapped in his house with his engineer dad in Washington state, while Megs is alone in her mother's car in a hotel parking garage in Los Angeles. Each of these main characters is distinctly portrayed. Josh's voice sounds authentic whether he's talking about normal teenage feelings or life and death issues. Megs reports her fears and extraordinary, brave actions with simple clarity. Day by day, these two kids tell their devastating stories as their situations deteriorate. Josh worries as his father becomes compulsive about cleaning house, organizing their dwindling food supply, and talking to Josh about things he can't even bear to contemplate. Which death is best - zapping by aliens, slow starvation, or suicide? Megs must contend with the violent thugs who've taken over the hotel and are trying to find her - and the gun she's discovered in an abandoned car. Should she trade the gun for the tiny hostage kitten she loves or risk her tenuous hold on life to attempt a rescue mission? Although the Pearls of Death (PODs) are the cause of their terrifying conditions, Josh's story focuses on the dynamics of a small family within the confines of home; Megs' story features the reactions of a slice of humanity in a wider world. These two well told survival stories, side-by-side, make a very appealing novel for both boys and girls, twelve and older. No clear explanation is offered for the alien invasion, but there are plenty of hints to generate readers' speculation and desire for a sequel. Review by Sheila Kelly Welch
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too,
By TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pod (Paperback)
"Birds fly from branch to branch. A gust of wind sends leaves skittering across the patio floor. Storm clouds gather and darken a turbulent sky...Sirens pierce the moment...I reach for the door. `Josh, wait!' The urgency in dad's voice stops me cold. He's looking up. I follow his eyes...Dropping down through the clouds, silent like a spider on a web, is a massive black sphere."
What would you do if one day you couldn't leave your house anymore? And if you did, these giant black spheres hovering throughout the sky would zap you and you'd disappear FOREVER? Would you try to stay alive inside a house, a car, a hotel, or wherever you happened to be, or ...would you choose to go outside? Megs got trapped in a parking garage. Josh and his dad got stuck at home. Every day, they manage to survive one more time by scavenging food from empty cars or from eating one more canned good from the pantry. But how much longer can they hold out? How long will the black spheres be there, hovering... waiting? When will the black spheres finally DO something? Or is it really the other people in the hotel Megs has to worry about? And is Josh's dad more of a threat than the black spheres? It takes more than hope to stay alive in this crazy, black sphere-filled story. Find out what happens when the world as people know it gets suspended in an eternal Now, with no end in sight and no way to fight the black spheres. Reviewed by: Erikka Adams, aka "The Bookbinder"
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional and unexpected, POD is a gem not to be missed,
This review is from: Pod (Paperback)
On an ordinary day, an army of black, pearlescent balls descend from the clouds and hover in symmetrical patterns over, seemingly, the entirety of the Earth. No one knows what they are or why they've come. The lone warning is an unbearable metallic screeching noise audible only to humans. But the noise is far less terrifying than what happens next: The balls hanging in the sky release beams of white light that instantly vaporize any person unlucky enough to be caught without shelter. With anyone who ventures outside instantly "deleted," those left alive must try to figure out how to survive with no chance for escape and in near total isolation.
The science-fiction title POD, an unexpectedly absorbing first novel by author Stephen Wallenfels, had the honor of being the launch title for newcomer namelos press. Intended to be the first of a trilogy, POD is remarkable and captivating, a far cry from the cookie-cutter apocalyptic narratives one usually encounters. Expect no cannibals, no lone anti-heroes wandering about in a dusty wasteland, no senseless, over-the-top gun battles in a culture that wouldn't have had the technology or raw materials to manufacture ammunition. Speaking cinematically, POD has more in common with Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 masterpiece "The Birds" than with the "Mad Max" franchise or any of its clones. POD concerns itself with a larger question: How do ordinary people adapt to a new normality in the aftermath of an inexplicable, cataclysmic event? Nearly sixteen, Josh is trapped in his small house in Prosser, Washington with his increasingly obsessive-compulsive engineer father and the family dog. Josh's mother was out of town when the PODs struck, and he and his father must grapple with the hope of her survival against the likelihood of her death as their supplies dwindle. In an underground parking garage in Los Angeles, twelve year old Megs and her mother were on the run from her mother's abusive boyfriend. With her mother gone on an errand moments before the PODs attacked, Megs must fend for herself while hiding her presence from the thugs who have taken over the hotel and now prowl the garage with increasing regularity. Certain that her mother is alive and will come back for her, Megs must balance her desire to remain in the garage with danger she faces in choosing to stay--or not. The story, told over a period of 28 days by the two narrators in short, alternating chapters, becomes increasingly addictive as days pass and the PODs continue their dark sentinel in the sky. Despite their youth, the narrators avoid sinking into pathetic whining and approach their predicament with realism and remarkable common sense, a refreshing change from the trend of cloying sentimentality that tends to make young characters act younger than they ought to be. Josh and Megs are active participants in their survival, not merely hangers-on to the adults around them. They must make choices with real consequences about how they will continue to live and what meaning they can derive from the world around them. Don't let this novel slip though your hands. Exceptional and unexpected, POD is a gem not to be missed, even by those who aren't normally fans of the sci-fi genre.
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