Colony Two Mars by Gerald M. Kilby

Colony Two Mars by Gerald M. Kilby

Jann is not alone on Mars after all. In the secret mining colony mentioned in the first book, it turns out that a great many of the original colonists have survived and they aren’t particularly friendly. Jann gets pulled into the politics of their strange society and finds herself in another fight for survival as competing factions go to war with each other. She also has to face an ethical dilemma about whether or not she can permit the research COM was doing on human beings—the research which resulted in all of the deaths of the first book—be brought back to earth. (She herself hasn’t returned to earth out of fear of bringing the disease with her.)

 

Again, the novel is fairly fast moving and has a lot of tension and conflict. And all the while that Jann is fighting to survive in this novel, she and her friends are under the threat of earth sending new ships to Mars to get something that they refuse to believe doesn’t really exist—a miracle cure for aging. It’s a good set up for the next book.