Cover image of "Colony One," a novel about Earth's first space colony

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It’s 2075, and the human race is in the earliest stages of colonizing the solar system. A trillion-dollar high tech company named Maverick Enterprises has built Elderon, Earth’s first space colony in Low Earth Orbit. It’s designed to house five thousand colonists. Accommodations range from spartan quarters resembling prison cells to first class suites worthy of a five-star hotel. Meanwhile, on Earth, high-intensity war is raging between Russia and the United States. Cyber-attacks are frequent and devastating. It seems only a matter of time before Russian hackers—and perhaps soldiers, too—will find a way to disrupt the operations on Elderon. Which is why Jonah Wyatt, who was a sergeant in US Army Special Operations, has been assigned to a private army forming in the colony. There, his life will become entangled with an investigative journalist named Magnolia Barnes in Tarah Benner’s science fiction thriller, Colony One.

Two hapless young people ensnared in an evil plot

Neither Jonah nor Maggie has come to Elderon with a clean slate. Jonah was the sole survivor of his team’s operation deep below the surface of the Earth in a Siberian tunnel, searching for the lair of a Russian cyber-terrorist cell. His reward was an administrative discharge. And Maggie lost her job as a reporter with a respected New York daily newspaper when the paper’s new owner, Maverick Enterprises, replaced all the reporters with artificial intelligence. She only ekes out a living crafting fluffy first-person stories for the web about her experiences with food and other lifestyle choices under the name Layla Jones. Now, somehow, these two young Americans find themselves at the center of a nefarious plot to disable the space colony and bankrupt Maverick Enterprises.

Colony One (Elderon Chronicles #1 of 5) by Tarah Benner (2018) 348 pages ★★★☆☆

Artist's conception of a space station somewhat resembling the one in this novel about Earth's first space colony
An artist’s concept of a spinning space colony in Low Earth Orbit. It’s a little like Elderon in the novel, except that colony one has three spinning wheels atop one another, not just one. Image: Mark Tims – ResearchGate

A deeply flawed novel

The setup in Colony One is intriguing, and an accomplished writer might have developed it into an exciting novel. Banner does manage to build suspense, but she stumbles badly along the way. She portrays every “good” character as physically attractive, while the others are potbellied or ugly. Jonah and Maggie feel powerfully drawn to each other, and love is bound to develop. It’s a distraction from the action and clearly a sop to readers looking for romance. And, somehow, though they’ve met and interacted, Jonah doesn’t recognize her when she turns up unexpectedly dressed a little differently and wearing no eyeglasses.

But the story includes two even worse flaws. The action revolves around a piece of technology that Benner clearly made to order. It’s technology that no sane scientist would ever propose. And then, as the action accelerates toward a violent climax, the author leaves the story hanging. To find out what happens, you have to read the next book in the series. Well, the hell with that. No, thank you.

About the author

Photo of Tarah Benner, author
Tarah Benner. Image: Amazon

Tarah Benner writes on her author website, “I’m an author and adventurer living in sunny Colorado with two dogs, one cat, one tiny savage, and my partner in crime. I write stories with badass heroines, tormented heroes, lots of action, and a dash of romance. I love to put ordinary people in extraordinary situations and give them a chance to be the hero of their small town…or all of humanity.” Now we know.

Benner is the author of more than twenty books, including both science fiction and fantasy.

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