Cold People: From the multi-million copy bestselling author of Child 44

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Cold People follows the perilous journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold? The world has fallen. Without warning, a mysterious and omnipotent force has claimed the planet for their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, no reasons given for their actions. All they have is a message: humanity has thirty days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist…Antarctica. What lines, if any, shouldn’t be crossed to save humanity from extinction? That question is at the heart of this stunning postapocalyptic thriller. . . . [a] triumph of imagination and empathy." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The time shift into the future diluted my compassion for Liza and Atto, they were just beginning a relationship and then suddenly they are like an old married couple – she’s busy saving people in the hospital wards and he’s off becoming the fisherman he always wanted to be, all while leaving their teenage daughter to stew in her own pubescent thoughts on her own journey of self-discovery. The story changes timelines several times from present day to twenty years in the future. The survivors and how they adapt to the extreme arctic cold was absolutely fascinating. We also find that the scientists have been working with genetics to make people that are more adapted for the cold. The readers are introduced to Echo, Liza and Atto’s cold adapted daughter. One of the Cold People. We get an idea of the chaos of this limited mass exodus and then the narrative then jumps 20 years into the future where what remains of humanity has formed a few settlements and are just trying to survive living in the most inhospitable location on the planet. One of the ways they're looking to the future and preservation of mankind is through genetically engineering the next generation to be better able to withstand the icy climate. Dun, dun, dun! (I mean, rarely in fiction is genetic engineering introduced when all goes smoothly, right?) I adored this so much about this book and it does lean towards many different genres. The way people organise themselves, govern and also find new ways to manage and exist. Antarctica has research facilities so it is a given that there are going to be scientists and experiments involved, these are so intriguing and they start to add a more sci-fi and thriller edge to an already gripping story.They then sail to Antarctica in an oil tanker full of hundreds of thousands of people. Which then bumps into a cruise liner, which they zip line down to, then walk across a nuclear submarine on to the beach. I’ll let you digest that for a minute. Did the scientists succeed in creating a hybrid human that will perpetuate the human race, or did they simply create yet another monster of ambition, vainglorious selfishness and greed? Nothing changes, it seems.

A brilliantly conceived postapocalyptic story . . . absolutely captivating . . . Smith’s near-future world is wonderfully imaginative and rigorously detailed, the kind of made-up place that feels viscerally real. A real treat.” — Booklist (starred review) A zany, wildly gripping, dark futuristic fantasy.” — Vogue, Most Anticipated Books of the Year * “Fascinating…a propulsive ride…through a well-built world.” — The Christian Science Monitor *

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If Cold People is about anything it is an exploration of humanity’s will to survive. In particular, what steps we might take if pushed, literally to an extreme. And what then happens when the cure might be worse than the disease. But it is unclear why the whole alien invasion was required. If this was the story Smith wanted to tell there were possibly more elegant and less contrived ways of getting there. I'm a huge fan of Tom Rob Smith's novels, having read his previous books multiple times. His pace and style of writing make his novels gripping and hugely enjoyable from beginning to end. I have really enjoyed the previous novels I have read by Tom Rob Smith, so was keen to try his stand-alone, ‘Cold People.’ It was more than a little out of my comfort zone, but, having finished it, I feel that there were some things I really liked and some things I struggled with. One of Yotam’s tests for Eitan to prove his capacity for empathy is to show him movies and gauge his reactions. What movie would you use as a standard for evaluating humanity? Watch that movie and imagine seeing it through Eitan’s eyes. What did you notice about this movie for the first time? Spellbinding . . . suspenseful . . . electrifying . . . A speculative masterpiece that will resonate with fans of Emily St. John Mandel, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jeff VanderMeer.” — Library Journal (starred review)

There is an aphorism that every person has a novel in them. There perhaps should be a new aphorism that every novelist also has a post-apocalyptic or dystopian novel in them. Plenty of ‘mainstream’ novelists have tried this genre on recently including Derek Miller (Radio Life), Robert Harris (The Second Sleep), Inga Simpson (The Last Woman in the World) and Noah Hawley (Anthem). For Tom Rob Smith, known for his series of historical Russian thrillers, which started with his break out debut Child 44, that novel is Cold People. There are many insightful passages in this novel. I was interested to find out how this all would work out. (Pretty predictably, in fact, but like I said, there is going to be a sequel if that ending has anything to do with it.) My beef: serialized novels tend to have a ton of filler, and there was plenty of that here too. (I should have guessed that this might be a series just from the author's bio: he is famous for them!) Thirty days to evacuate everyone to Antarctica. That’s the edict given to the human race when, on an ordinary day in August not too long from now, a superior life-form arrives in the skies above Earth. Thus begins the largest and the last human migration, with the seemingly impossible task of making a life on the only continent where human beings can’t survive. Faced with extinction and a rapidly dwindling population, the remaining scientists and world leaders come to the conclusion that humanity cannot rely on natural evolution to save them; and work begins on engineering a new species. Called Cold People, these new humans are capable of so much more than we’d ever dreamed. Next came Child 44, later made into a movie on the big screen starring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Noomi Rapace. I gave this 4 stars in my review and went on to become the first Australian blogger to interview Tom Rob Smith. Smith’s latest combines a number of electrifying sci-fi set pieces with a breathtaking insight into the human instinct to love life and each other, no matter the cost... A speculative masterpiece that will resonate with fans of Emily St. John Mandel, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jeff VanderMeer’ Library JournalThis book follows the journey that the human race makes as it tries to work out who gets to go, each country has their own criteria and priorities. There are also individuals who make their own way as well. It is a group of individuals that are the main focus as they make their journey to the frozen south. I don't know how to rate this book and am open to the argument that 2 stars is too low. The problem was...hmmm....it was well written and I read it in a few sittings but ...I didn't like the story. Is that fair? I don't know.