After aliens occupy Earth in 2023 and enact "the largest genocide ever committed," all human survivors are forced to live in Antarctica, where genetic engineering becomes key to their survival as a species. 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. 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. Cold People by Tom Rob Smith is inventive and optimistic about humanity while pointing out our flaws and I'm glad I stepped into this frightening futuristic portrayal. From the brilliant, bestselling author of Child 44 comes a suspenseful and fast-paced novel about a colony of global apocalypse survivors seeking to reinvent civilisation under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

Fascinating . . . a propulsive ride [that] unfolds at a galloping pace through a well-built world.” — Christian Science Monitor Cinematic . . . Natural selection is magnificent in the abstract, when it works over millennia, but seeing it sped up to take place in a single lifetime, as Smith vividly imagines, exposes its brutality.” — Washington Post The People: we’re introduced to a select few whose adventures we’ll follow, notably an American family on holiday in Lisbon, a boy the family meet there and an Israeli soldier (of course we’ll meet others as the story progresses) . I couldn’t read this book fast enough. It’s been several days since I closed the book and I still can’t get it out of my head. The story ended with it being set up for a possible sequel. Please, please, please let there be a sequel. I have questions! So many questions!Arrival and Survival: those who successfully reach their destination have to find a way to live in this virtually uninhabitable place. I thought the premise was good. An alien species arrives and delivers a message that all people must reach Antarctica within 30 days or, presumably, die. The story follows the survivors to Antarctica, and the new society’s attempt to genetically engineer a superior being - “the cold people” - to be able to thrive and survive in the hostile climate. Unlike many other apocalypse stories, Cold People does not discuss the initial attempts to establish a means of survival on the ice but skips ahead twenty years. Why do you think Smith made the assumption that people would last that long?

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) We first meet an American woman on holiday in Portugal with her family. She is beguiled by a handsome local fisherman. The messages from the alien entities arrive shortly after they meet. They both arrive in the Antarctic. How do they and the thousands of other refugees manage to live in this chilly, desolate new world and form communities? We know three separate societies were established on the Antarctic Peninsula. We do not learn how this was done or the problems associated with strangers cooperating and surviving in this bleak, cold, uninhabited wilderness. Suddenly, the time abruptly jumps to 2043. The couple we met at the beginning now has a genetically engineered daughter, a teenager who can comfortably withstand sub-zero temperatures biologically. We learn a little about life in their community. You did feel sorry for Cold People, and there's the rub: they are often described as being unemotional. And yet..... there are scenes where Eitan is loving, euphoric, and even expresses grief. Although each chapter was headed with the place and time period, I would have preferred a more linear timeline. The 20-year gap in the storyline omitted facts about the struggles in the development of communities. There were some thought-provoking moral and ethical issues. The finale concludes with difficult decisions and erupts with conflict, danger and destruction.

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The year is 2023 (yes literally, but also fictionally, and possibly non-fictionally? Still plenty of time left in the year yet - we'll see!) and aliens are ostensibly done putting up with Earthlings' bullshit. They show up like it's Independence Day, announce everyone on the planet has exactly 30 days to make it to Antarctica and those who don't may be eliminated (this said in my best Phil Keoghan voice, we've been binging old seasons of Amazing Race.)

This was a fun read. The action flows nicely. The characters are memorable. The premise is that alien ships appear in the skies over Earth, and broadcast to the world that humanity has 30 days to make it to Antarctica. Every last one of them. Those who manage to make the journey find the climate as inhospitable as ever. Humanity struggles to survive in the subzero temperatures. Scientists race to genetically engineer a new breed of human who can not only survive but thrive on the planet's coldest continent. If we are invaded by aliens from another planet, I certainly hope it doesnt go as it is depicted in this book. Then again I guess that our mistreatment of the planet and subsequent climate change wont matter. In a way we may just deserve the fate depicted, a different species only allowing mankind to live in the coldest continent on earth. Of course many of us would die, not all will be able to travel in the allotted time and many more will die, not being used to or unable to prepare for the extreme weather. After those humans who did not make the deadline are vaporised by the aliens, the remainder, a couple of million people, must make a new home in a hostile environment with what they have brought and what they can adapt from their surroundings. I was intrigued by the author’s scenarios of how the survivors created habitations, workplaces, social structures, and developed food sources in such bleak circumstances. Who would have thought that lichen could be so useful? Cinematic... Natural selection is magnificent in the abstract, when it works over millennia, but seeing it sped up to take place in a single lifetime, as Smith vividly imagines, exposes its brutality’ Washington PostA tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. 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. Original and imaginative, as profoundly intimate as it is grand in scope, Cold People is a masterful and unforgettable epic.” — Bookreporter.com 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 *

The “exodus” to Antarctica occurs in the summer of 2023, and the narrative is divided between the events of that year, chronicling the colonisation of a new society and seen largely through the eyes of a young couple, Liza and Atto, and a crisis point that occurs 20 years later, at the culmination of the project to genetically engineer a new generation of “ice-adapted” people bred to thrive in the harshest conditions. The most successful of these humanoid creatures is ready to be “integrated” into the community, but the dilemma remains: will this superior species, created by humans, save or destroy us? The answer, according to Yotam, the scientist who has “raised” the creature from birth, will depend on its capacity to love. “But how can I teach something I’ve been looking for my whole life?” Yotam wonders. Original and imaginative, as profoundly intimate as it is grand in scope, Cold People is a masterful and unforgettable epic. Shortly after Liza and Atto step foot on Antarctica we catch our breath and can’t help but feel for them of the hopelessness of their predicament. But hold on tight as we fast forward 20 years into the future. Liza and Atto are still alive, still together and are now with child – albeit an ‘ice adapted’, genetically modified daughter called Echo. This was the ‘aha’ moment for me, this is where the synopsis is heading. It seems genetically modifying embryos is humanity’s answer to survive extinction. Did I love this? Hmmmm! I liked bits and pieces of it. I think this book needed a bit more editing. Also, I guess I didn't see why the genetic research/experiments were even needed. The people were surviving - births were happening and over time/generations genetic modifications to the environment would have taken place anyway. Why not build robots and send them out to see what's happening on earth? Why not use genetic science to develop food/plant species?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.