In Wolff’s YA SF novel, teenage survivors of an alien massacre on Mars find that the horror hasn’t ended.

It’s been almost 35 weeks since the Hellas Station—an Earthling colony on Mars—was massacred by a swarm of alien insects. Eighty-two people were slaughtered, leaving behind five teenage survivors: Danny, Constance, Scarlett, and Isaac (who came to Mars only nine months ago with a group of colonists) and Adam, who was raised in Hellas and remains the only human to have been born on Mars. The insects, and their queen, are dead, and the traumatized teens have been hard at work repairing Hellas Station, maintaining the water filtration systems, growing hydroponic vegetables, and keeping the most damaged areas of the colony sealed off to avoid potential toxic contamination. A comms relay reveals that even though the survivors transmitted documentation about the attack, including video footage, NASA has deemed the evidence as inconclusive and recommends that the crew of a newly arrived ship from Earth perform psychological evaluations. When the crew arrives, the survivors are on guard, as the adults don’t quite believe their story about killer bugs—that is, until Hellas is slammed by another infestation, forcing them all to flee and seek refuge on the Starship Horizon, which has been orbiting on autopilot. They quickly discover that they’re not the only ones aboard. In this sequel to Colony (2025), Wolff delivers a masterful SF/horror story that readers won’t be able to put down. The narrative combines the visceral terror of bloodthirsty insect aliens (“a bug cut our teacher in half right in front of us—one of the big ones with the pincers”) with a heart-wrenching exploration of trauma and grief. Adam is a compelling protagonist and narrator; the supporting characters are equally intriguing, even when they make choices that have severe consequences. While this is a YA novel, adult genre fans will thoroughly enjoy it as well, especially those with an affinity for fast-paced and gory action sequences.

An expertly crafted SF/horror yarn that will grab readers from the first page.

A teenager on a small, pioneering Mars colony faces the arrival of an additional colony ship and a deadly infestation by lethal Martian insects in Wolff’s SF novel.

The Hellas Station is a trailblazing Mars colony staffed by only a handful of international, highly competent astronauts. One of these exceptional colonists is extra-special: Adam Flynn is the first human born on Mars (sadly, his mother died from cancer in the radiation-rich environment). Seventeen-year-old Adam has matured to be a survival-hardened and resourceful youth who has helped to ready Hellas Station for an influx of nearly 100 new settlers, all of whom are on a long, one-way trip and expect to spend the rest of their lives on the red planet. But Adam is emotionally unprepared for the arrival of the group, which includes 25 more young people, many of them genius-level high-achievers. They all know Adam’s story (unbeknownst to him, the first “Martian” boy is a celebrity figure on Earth) and treat him with a blend of curiosity and disdain. The military commander of the newcomers, Col. Griggs, is a glory-seeking, aggressive type (with two not-so-nice teenagers of his own) who usurps the authority of the established colonists and is particularly condescending to Adam, insisting he is just a “kid” and ignoring hisadvice on all matters Martian. Things begin to go badly: Adam notices an especially powerful dust storm bearing down on the complex, and the installation’s power failures are traced to a frightening infestation by a hitherto-unsuspected Martian life form. At first appearing as dark patches or tiny larvae, the marauders turn out to be countless beetlelike insects. Of course, Col. Griggs and his Earth allies vainly perceive the discovery of life on another planet as an opportunity for naming rights, and as a new potential food source. Adam, on the other hand, figures out quickly that it is the humans who are on the menu.

The first-person-narrated story begins on a note recalling Andy Weir’s popular novel The Martian (2011), sharing an emphasis on the hard science of exoplanet survival skills and making the most of limited resources, with the added YA-friendly perspective of a teen hero with a (very) circumscribed upbringing abruptly coming to terms with having other humans around who are his own age, particularly of the macho-jock and mean-girl sort. (Whatever raging-hormones youthful romance happens here is dialed considerably down.) At around the midway point, with the onslaught of the bug menace, things take a more Hollywood action-movie turn, which is ironic considering how frequently the youthful characters reference celluloid SF (especially 1986’s Aliens) and deny that their plight resembles hack scriptwriting: “If this were a movie, I’d grin triumphantly and say something clever. She’d laugh and give me a fist-bump. Except my life doesn’t seem to be shaping into that kind of movie.” Actually, that really is more or less what transpires, with Adam and select others doing superheroic acts in an oxygen-starved atmosphere and facing off against unimaginable hordes with the most meagre homebrew weaponry while tossing off courageous asides. There is gruesome gore and a shocking body count, underlying the message that haughty grown-ups should give more credence to precocious astro-kids, especially when it comes to monsters.

An entertaining, YA-leaning SF nail-biter.