POWER CYCLE is a dystopian technothriller which might change the way you see the modern world around you!
This story is equally action-packed as it is inventive, introducing characters who will make you feel like you're fighting to survive alongside them.
Beckie Alderson heads to San Francisco just as the third and final phase of a world-wide social and economic collapse begins. She leads her new friends to take refuge in a home in Napa she had just inherited from her father, where the house is fully self-sustainable and requires no public utilities.
The group expands the technology and develop their community on an ideology while the world is in ruin. However, they are in terrible danger when they’re discovered by a sinister force with opposing ideals.
San Francisco is just the beginning.
Keep your seatbelt on for this relevant thriller and please consider leaving a rate or review!
POWER CYCLE is a dystopian technothriller which might change the way you see the modern world around you!
This story is equally action-packed as it is inventive, introducing characters who will make you feel like you're fighting to survive alongside them.
Beckie Alderson heads to San Francisco just as the third and final phase of a world-wide social and economic collapse begins. She leads her new friends to take refuge in a home in Napa she had just inherited from her father, where the house is fully self-sustainable and requires no public utilities.
The group expands the technology and develop their community on an ideology while the world is in ruin. However, they are in terrible danger when they’re discovered by a sinister force with opposing ideals.
San Francisco is just the beginning.
Keep your seatbelt on for this relevant thriller and please consider leaving a rate or review!
I. FIRST STONE
2013
On a foggy Saturday afternoon in October, 11-year-old Beckie Alderson was visiting her father in Napa, California. Her father’s name was Richard, and he was living alone in a home with 20 acres of land which used to be a winery.
“So, what’s going on in school?” Richard asked. He only had her for the day, and it had been two weeks since the last time he’d seen her. They were sitting together in a den area, just finishing an early dinner, at a round oak table. This was next to a window facing the front of the house. The view was a small valley with dead vine stumps tangled around old posts, each nearly hidden in dry, dead weeds. Hiding behind the fog across the valley were hills with sporadic oak trees. On a clear day, there were no other buildings in sight. To the right was a windy creek. To the left, about a hundred feet from the house, was an old, wooden windmill, with conduit running the entire length and into the ground. There was also an old, brown barn on the property, behind the house and out of view.
“I have to do a science project by Wednesday,” Beckie answered. She was wearing a pink t-shirt with a rainbow, and blue jeans. Her hair was black and pulled back into two ponytails on the top-back. The oak chair to her left had the backpack she brought for the day, with her puffy, pink raincoat lying on top.
“Have you started anything?”
“No. I’ve been too busy,” Beckie said, looking down to the table.
“Is there a topic or category?”
“I’m supposed to come up with a way to use science to solve a problem that’s not about science.”
Richard laughed. “Well, isn’t the point of science always to solve something that’s not about science?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why else would they go to the moon if it wasn’t for science?”
“Ha, you got me. That one’s hard to argue.” Richard had a brown beard and short hair. He was wearing a white t-shirt covered in paint spots and dirt stains. It was one of several he used for home projects, and he didn’t even realize it looked dirty. He also had loose cargo jeans. “So, you know what I do, right?”
“You’re an electrical engineer,” she answered with a nod and smile.
“Right. I use science to develop things for people to live easier lives, like renewable energy.”
Beckie was confused. “What do you mean?”
“Well, do you know the difference between a gas car and an electric car?”
She shrugged. “Sure, one needs gas to go, and you have to plug in the other to charge the battery.”
“That’s right. One of the two is more convenient because you can just charge at home with the right equipment. No need for a drive out to the gas station.”
“Plus, you don’t have to pay to fill up the electric one!” Beckie said, perked up.
“Not quite. The electric bill just goes up when you charge the car.”
“Oh, right” she said, still confused.
“Funny thing is,” Richard continued, “a lot of power companies make that power to charge a car by burning the same sort of gas to create steam. Then the steam turns turbines kinda like the windmill outside, and that’s how we get our power in the house.”
Beckie paused. “So, is there free energy? Or is that what renewable energy is?”
“Well, renewable sources can be free, but that doesn’t always mean it’s free. But maybe you have yourself a problem to solve. My windmill outside is fueled by wind. It converts the movement into energy, which I use to help power the house. It’s not enough, so I just have a lower electric bill. If you can think of a way to make something move without needing any kind of fuel to make it move, you can solve more than one problem.”
“Magnets!” she said happily.
“That was fast. What do you mean, though?”
“North and south ends of magnets always push each other away. You never have to charge them or fuel them, it just always works.”
Richard smiled. “Okay, how do you use that idea to make constant movement to turn into energy?”
Beckie laid both hands flat on the table and began to pat to a drum roll for a moment while she thought. “I got it! Daddy, do you have a ruler? One with holes like it goes in a binder?”
“Sure.”
“And magnets! I’m going to need magnets, a sharpened pencil, some tape, and a bunch of books.”
Richard’s smile got bigger. “Alright. I’ve got all that in the garage. Let’s go.”
***
The house was three floors with six bedrooms. It had forest green siding around, accented with river stone siding around the lower part of the front of the house, as well as the pillars besides the front double-door entry. The front doors and garage doors were a matching, dark brown. There were two garage doors for a three-car garage. The single-car entry on the right rolled up, revealing Richard and Beckie approaching a red workbench with drawers and a butcher board against the wall.
The right side of the garage with the open door had a washer, dryer, and water heater to the left of the home entry, and shelving around with lots of boxes. There were other typical items for a garage, such as a mountain bike hanging from a hook, a tire pump on the floor below it, spare air intake filters, etc.
“Here it is,” Richard said after he opened the top drawer of the workbench. “We’ve got the ruler, a sharpened pencil, tape, and magnets! Good thing I keep the random stuff mixed up in this drawer.” He placed all items on the workbench surface. Then he walked to the back of the garage, opened a white paper case box, and pulled out an armful of thick, paperback textbooks. As he came back and set those on the workbench, he said: “and here are the books. This what you need?”
“Perfect!” Beckie said. There were about a dozen round magnets linked together. She took off four, tested out which side pushed or pulled on each, and sorted them. Richard watched as she placed two stacks of books side by side, and stood the pencil tightly between the books, straight up. She then taped a magnet on each end of the ruler and balanced the ruler on the pencil, with the point in the middle hole. Then she piled two books to the left and two to the right, with a distance of about half an inch longer than the ruler. Lastly, she taped a magnet on the edges of each of the top books to the right and left, just out of reach of the ruler. “Think it’ll work?”
Richard was amazed. He knew this wasn’t going to work, but he realized his little girl just invented a self-propelled turbine. “Give it a push,” he said.
Beckie flicked one end of the ruler and they both watched as it made a half spin. There was just enough momentum for the magnets on the ends of the ruler to pass the magnets on the books, giving it a barely noticeable extra push before the ruler quickly came to a stop. Beckie was disappointed. “Ah, it didn’t work.”
“Are you kidding?” Richard was getting excited. “It did work! It’s just not perpetual. After that first push, this thing just pushed itself a little before it stopped.”
“Oh.”
“You got through the first step with the solution, now you just need the mechanics. It stopped so quickly because of its friction between rough surfaces. It might help to suspend it upside down like a ceiling fan, and with the right materials. I’ve got some scrap parts. I think we can make this work, but it’ll probably take more time than today. I’ll just get stuff together for you to keep working on it at home.”
Beckie sighed. “Thanks Dad. I don’t think it’ll ever be finished. But this was fun.”
“Well, sure you can finish it. I’ve got another hour with you to get you what you need. This is going to be the school’s best project.”
“Daddy,” she looked down, “I haven’t told you why I’ve been busy.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re moving.”
Just as Richard’s expression quickly turned from excited to sad, there was a loud crack sound in front of him. Beckie’s head immediately tilted back with a quick splash of blood. Then there was a loud clash in the back of the garage as a stone dropped and bounced back in toward them. It was a stone from the creek outside. The moment Richard turned to look outside, there was another crack sound with a flash of absolute red and black, then he fell.
That first stone hit Beckie’s cheek and cut it open before it crashed to the back of the garage. She knelt and screamed as she placed her hands on her face and blood dripped between her fingers. Then she saw her dad lying on his back with blood all over his face.
“How’s it feel, asshole?” a man yelled from outside. Beckie was frightened as she heard footsteps running toward them just as a tall man ran into the garage. He was about Richard’s age, wearing an old blue t-shirt and cargo shorts. He had greasy hair down to his shoulders and a short, grey and brown beard. He quickly ran in and kicked Richard in his ribs. Richard grunted and coughed.
“NO!” Beckie yelled with strings of blood and tears over her mouth. “Stop it!”
“We live in boxes ‘cause of you!” the man continued with another kick to Richard’s chest, and Richard grunted in pain. “You enjoy your big house?” He kicked again. Beckie was wailing.
There was another man’s voice outside, “Herman, let’s go!” The tall man kicked Richard in the face, breaking his nose. Then he turned around to run out, leaving bloody footprints with every other step on the garage floor and driveway.
“Daddy!” Beckie moved closer to her dad and put her hand on his shoulder. “Why is this happening?” she cried.
Richard coughed. “I’m so sorry Baby. You’ll have to go. You’re not safe with me.”
“No!”
“It’s better for you to move. Things are going to be alright. Just don’t forget me, okay?”
Beckie hugged her dad. “I’ll never forget you.”
“I love you, Kid,” Richard said as he hugged back. “I always will, and I’m so proud of you.”
Becky is with her inventor father when he is savagely attacked by a mob. Too young to realise what is happening she is taken away by her mother and only years later when she inherits his house does she discover what her father had designed and why the sector of society anxious to keep central control is so opposed to it.
She finds that the machine, the Magig, is able to power the house without any outside input and as the world degenerates into chaos outside she and a little group of survivors hole up in the house and gradually build a self-sufficient commune. But the villains have found out where they are.
The book has a clear thread of a plot and Becky, the leader and provider of most of the expertise, a mechanic prior to inheriting the house, is a well-drawn character. We are rooting for her and her followers to succeed through several pivotal and exciting plot twists when it looks as if they will be discovered and killed.
However I felt unable to give the novel more than a 3 because of the lack of tension in many sections. Lengthy passages describing the house are included and even a three-page patent statement for the Magig. Some of this, although not all, is relevant at some point and could have been woven in when required, but it detracted completely from the tension in the main story at the time – whether or not the main characters would survive the chaos. For example, the fighting only starts in chapter 7 but then we are given a blow-by-blow description of the hotel room Becky is in before she hears the gunfire.
Characters are mostly described by what they are wearing and their hairstyles, including those who make no further appearance. This sameness of description did not always allow the main characters to stand out and sometimes it was given at inappropriate moments. For example, when one of the invaders, Max, is seen arriving at the commune under siege it says, Max stepped out of the Jeep, stepping his left foot down in his brown hiking boot, when it is whether he has a gun or not and not which foot we are interested in.
A developmental and copy edit would undoubtedly have solved these issues and led to an even more exciting read.