In “Colony”, Ron Wolff offers a compelling and impressively assured debut—a science fiction novel that sets its sights not on battles or interstellar conquest, but on the intimate terrain of coming-of-age in an unfamiliar world. Set on Mars in the aftermath of Earth’s ecological collapse, the story focuses less on the machinery of survival than on the emotional lives of those tasked with building a future. It is a quietly thrilling, psychologically astute book that explores what it means to grow up on the edge of humanity’s next great experiment.
The novel’s protagonist is Adam Flynn, the first human born on Mars and the only child among a crew of scientists who have spent nearly two decades maintaining Hellas Station. Despite only being seventeen, Adam is both capable and clever—in some ways more technician than teenager. Yet when a ship arrives bearing seventy-nine new colonists, including twenty-five young people, Adam’s world is transformed. The arrival of peers—real ones, with slang and secrets, rivalries and crushes—forces him into a social reality he’s never known. In many ways, “Colony” is less a space novel than a story about adolescence, about growing up.
Wolff excels at evoking the dissonance between Adam’s technical competence and his social inexperience. He knows how to fix radios and realign satellites, but struggles with eye contact, humour, and the painful ambiguities of friendship. His early encounters with the other teenagers are awkward, sometimes sharply funny and always fun to read. One of the novel’s most impressive achievements is how convincingly it captures the teenage mind, and the first-person writing style is perfect for getting in Adam’s head.
The supporting cast is equally well drawn. Isaac (“Iceman”) is a fast-talking, emotionally intelligent boy with a knack for diffusing tension; Constance and Conrad, ambitious twins from a powerful Earth family and Scarlett, a reserved and sharp-witted girl with a scar-like birthmark, gradually emerges as the novel’s most compelling foil to Adam. Their interactions form the heart of the story. Wolff has a keen ear for adolescent dialogue and a patience for the way real friendships develop, and it is likely teenage readers will relate to at least one of them.
Plot-wise, “Colony” unfolds in episodic fashion. Rather than building to a single climax, the story follows Adam through a series of social, technical, and emotional challenges: restoring a broken uplink to save the incoming ship; managing tensions in the GreenHab, the station’s agricultural dome; confronting jealousy, loss, and the slow recognition of desire. This structure may frustrate readers looking for traditional science fiction pacing, but it proves effective at portraying the rhythms of life in a remote, enclosed society—where the greatest pressures are not external, but interpersonal.
Wolff’s prose is clean and unadorned, favouring clarity over flourish, but his control of tone is well done. There are certainly moments of quiet lyricism, especially in descriptions of the Martian landscape, but the novel’s emotional resonance comes from restraint rather than embellishment. Like the station itself—efficient, weathered, human-scaled—the writing rarely calls attention to itself, yet builds a convincing and immersive world.
What makes “Colony” stand out is its confidence in the value of small stakes. While it touches on questions of planetary survival, climate collapse, and genetic adaptation, its real concerns are identity, belonging, and the fragile work of forging community. In its refusal to overdramatise, it becomes more affecting. The story does not ask what might destroy us, but what might save us—and whether, in the end, those things can be taught.
In the end, “Colony” is a thrilling novel for all ages, but will especially appeal to a young adult audience and fans of The Martian and Ender’s Game. It marks Ron Wolff as a writer not only of ideas, but of people, and it deserves to be read both as a strong entry in contemporary science fiction and as a timeless story of what it means to grow up—wherever you happen to be born.
You can get your copy of “Colony” by Ron Wolff here!
