Genre: Sci-Fi, YA
Reviewer: Scott
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About The Book
High school is hard enough. It gets a lot harder after the aliens show up.In the captivating YA science fiction novel “Colony High” by acclaimed author David Brin, the skeptical high school junior, Mark Bamford, finds himself caught up in a web of mystery and extraterrestrial intrigue. Living in the seemingly ordinary town of Twenty-Nine Palms, California, Mark dismisses the absurd rumor circulating among his classmates—an alien stranded in their midst. Such a clichéd movie rip-off, right? Can’t the math geeks come up with a more convincing hoax?
Yet, Mark’s doubts crumble when enigmatic black vans belonging to the secretive Cirocco Corporation swarm the town, conducting a relentless search for something unknown. With his trusty friend Alexandra by his side, Mark embarks on a daring investigation of his own. However, they soon realize that their social circle—comprised of skateboarding “X” enthusiasts and the varsity climbing team—is hardly equipped to face the challenges that lie ahead.
Drawing upon their ingenuity and a touch of double-dealing, Mark and Alexandra race against time to uncover the truth. As they dig deeper, they discover that the truth they seek may not be far away—it could be lurking right next door.In “Colony High,” Brin weaves a gripping tale of friendship, discovery, and the extraordinary hidden secrets that lie beneath the surface of the familiar.
Prepare to be captivated as Mark and Alexandra’s journey unravels the mysteries that will forever alter their lives and the fate of their town.
The Review
David Brin and I go way back.
Well, let me amend that.
David Brin’s writing and I go way back. I’ve since “met” him via email in 2020. and in person at Seattle WorldCon in 2025, but my first encounter with his work was way back in 1982 or 1983, when I stumbled across his book The Postman in my high school library. I devoured it in a day. (I just went back to check the dates, and Wikipedia shows the book was not actually published until 1985 as a three part novel, but the first part was published in 1982 as a stand-alone, so I am vindicated!)
I went on to read many of Brin’s other works, and was especially charmed by his whole concept of uplift – where humanity lifts dolphins, chimpanzees and gorillas to full human-level sentience. Dolphins in space ships? Amazing.
Flash forward to this year. After initially deciding not to go (cost, effort, time, all the things), I finally bit the bullet and attended my first full WorldCon. They had these events called Table Talks, where you could sign up for an hour with someone important in publishing. I managed to get in to Brin’s talk – which he graciously expanded from 6 to 10 authors – and snagged a few minutes to talk with him afterward.
We corresponded after the con, and he suggested some of his more recent YA books to read.
I dove into Colony High, and really enjoyed his take on an alien invasion. Mark and I also just finished watching Resident Alien, and they struck similar chords in me, although they are very different storylines. In both, an alien arrives on earth unexpectedly, thinking the worst of the human race, and is surprised that there is a good side to humanity after all.
Brin thrusts poor Mark Bamford into international fame. Mark, a junior at Twenty-Nine Palms High School in California’s Mojave Desert, falls somewhere between the unpopular geeks and popular jocks at his school. When he and his friends get wind of a strange rumor – that some of the jocks have captured a real live alien – he is initially skeptical. But when it turns out to be true, he intervenes and saves the interstellar traveler from exploitation, setting off a series of events culminating in… well, I don’t want to spoil it for you. But let’s just say it’s a life-altering event that sets up the rest of the series.
Colony High was a little slow for me at the start. I tend to go for stories that are a bit more whiz-bang – far future tales on distant worlds, or near-future ones that show how different that future is from our own time. This story takes place in 2028, and Twenty-Nine Palms is barely different from any California townin 2023, when it was released. So it takes a while for the real sci-fi part to kick in. But once it does…!
The alien – Na-bistaka- is described in a very discomfiting way. No adorable E.T. here, and certainly no trail of Reeses Pieces. It is creepy as hell – can the uncanny valley apply to aliens? – and it keeps its own secrets.
The eventual arrival of its kin doesn’t play out the way we (or the characters) expect. And once we shift to the decidedly different second half of the book, the plot starts to move like a freight train. The action sequence at the end had me on the edge of my seat.
I’m thrilled that Brin is still writing. This one is very different from his older tales, but I’m hoping these YA tales will help him win over a new generation of readers and serve as an introduction to his amazing catalog of work.
Give Colony High a try. You won’t be disappointed.
The Reviewer
Scott is the founder of Queer Sci Fi, Liminal Fiction, and QueeRomance Ink, and a fantasy and sci fi writer in his own right, with more than 30 published short stories, novellas and novels to his credit, including two trilogies.