Young adult sci-fi novel COLONY is a rollercoaster of a book. We find ourselves right at the very beginning of the colonization of Mars. Hellas Station is nothing more than a group of pressurized metal cylinders and a hydroponics farm, and the population of Mars is in the single figures. Among them is teenager Adam, the first person born on the planet. But a malevolent species begins to ravage its way through Mars’s human population, leading to a taut, tense struggle for survival.
Author Ron Wolff’s approach to the genre is in many ways an old-school one. For decades, the majority of science fiction writers depicting interplanetary colonization have done so within contexts that foreground internationalism, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy being the obvious example in a Martian context. Whether this will happen given the re-entrenchment of isolationist principles ushered in by the spread of authoritarianism and neofascism across the globe is open to question, but Wolff believes in it and heartily advocates for it. As the action begins, we find astronauts from America, Russia, India, and Japan living at Hellas Station.
However, the novel is also realistic about the near-future possibilities for Mars exploration. A second, smaller Mars station named New Holland is run for the purposes of a continuous live stream from the Martian surface, which brings in untold amounts of revenue for its backers. It’s a sly nod to the failed Mars One plan of a few years ago, and an idea which, though most unlikely to recur in the future, is doubtless still mooted on the notepad of a Silicon Valley angel investor or two.
Characterization is generally very sound here, but Wolff’s strengths lie in plot and pacing. The story develops naturally and organically, and although the deaths are pretty horrific (especially for a YA novel), there is nothing gratuitous. Adam comes across as likeable; he possesses levels of technical competency of Clarke’s Everymen, but he’s not so fastidious as to be above making mistakes under pressure every now and again. As the book reaches its climax, he emerges as flappable, and, indeed, a teenager of the sort we can all relate to. COLONY is that sort of book: an exciting SF novel where you don’t have to wonder about who to cheer for.
Tightly plotted and excellently paced, Ron Wolff’s COLONY is an exciting YA science fiction novel.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader