fiction 1

Book: POD
Author: Stephen Wallenfels

POD is an action adventure book set in the post apocalyptic remains of a Los Angeles hotel car park and a house In Washington state, this helps the readers thematic understanding a lot because this book is all about survival and if it’s set in a world where everything is normal with no destruction or chaos how are we supposed to believe that it’s the apocalypse. The reason it is set in two different locations is that the story is told in alternating first person chapters.

The overall story of the book is that the world has been invaded by mysterious floating pods that destroy anything or anyone stupid enough to go outside into the open, and because of this our two main characters are forced to survive in their current locations. For a 12 year old girl called Megs that location would be, as I said earlier, a multi-storey hotel car park. However for our other main character josh, he is bound to his house with his engineer dad and pet dog. But as time passes both Josh and Megs realise they are running out of supplies.

This is where the rugged individualism kicks in as they are forced to do everything in their will to get food, water, medical supplies and ultimately to just survive. The theme of rugged individuality was present in most if not all of the characters because a rugged individual is a person that should be able to fend for themselves without any help from others, such as people who live off the land and grow their own food. The reason I think that everyone alive in this story is a rigged individual is that you cant just expect other people to help you out in an apocalypse, and in this book it’s basically every man for themselves.