The book was very well written and flowed well. The plot was great. Everything I thought it would be from the description

A fantastic action/fantasy story. Taking place in the artic tundra, the chilling setting definitely makes the readers feel the cold. I had goosebumps thinking of how cold it was.

Finding a frozen human from 6000 BC in a cave while on a research trip makes this book start off with a bang. The craziness that comes next will have you turning pages so fast to find out what happens next.

If you love action Thriller books that have a bit of fantasy added in, you should definitely pick this one up.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book but it was an interesting storyline idea and good writing. A few inconsistencies but overall good and clever, sure to keep you interested.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of Colony by Benjamin Cross in exchange for an honest review. Wow, this book was intense, thrilling and funny. I really enjoyed it. I have been on a kick lately reading books and watching shows that are in the Artic or Antarctica and this was a great one. There is so much suspense inherent when you place a bunch of characters at the edge of the world, surrounded by water and ice, throw in sabotage and undiscovered creatures and it just ups the ante. Once I started reading it was really hard to stop and finished it in a weekend. I highly recommend this book!

Doctor Callum Ross takes the opportunity of a lifetime to work on a project in the Russian Arctic that takes him to a remote island.

Whilst on Harmsworth island he discovers an ice mummy which was a legend of a warrior who went to hunt the lizard birds and never came back.

What he discovers is purely terrifying - will they get out alive?

I found this to be quite complex and I had trouble keeping track of all the characters, especially the military ones.

The creatures, although fearsome were quite hard to visualise in my mind, although I have no doubt they were scary!

The gore was great but I couldn’t stomached more - I do love a bit of horror. It did remind me of Michael Crichton Jurassic Park due to the dinosaur type animals but that’s where the similarities stopped for me.

There was also plenty of double crossing - by the end I didn’t trust anyone.

I started reading this awhile ago and put it down because I didn’t have time for it. I actually really enjoyed this book and am so glad I got to it!

I actually started to read this and it was really good, but then I got busy and didn't get a chance to finish it before it expired. Totally my fault and I plan on going back and finishing it some day.

This was not what i expected but in the good way i guess.. a thriller set in a remote area with a hostile environment, and ancient frozen mummy. The synopsis of the book had me immediately but the book itself wasn't exactly what i had expected but it didn't disappoint me eventually, it was just okay for me.
Still will definitely be reading more by this author.

Thank you to the netgalley and the publisher for this free coffee exchange for my honest opinion.

Reading this novel brought back happy memories of those great thrillers by Hammond Innes in which the protagonists were usually ordinary people, not typical heroes, placed in a hostile environment and relying on their wits; and memories of those great adventure thriller writers from a century or more ago: Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. Combine the talents of all of the above and you have the name of a new writer: Benjamin Cross.
This is an intelligent thought-provoking thriller, full of action and horror, with realism evoked by the author's obvious vast knowledge of his chosen subject. Franz Josef Land, in the Arctic above Russia, is a perfect backdrop for a timeless story.

Archaeology Professor Callum Ross is taking a well-earned break with his son, Jamie, when a plea from a friend and the promise of a discovery of a lifetime lures him across the world to chase it. A mummy, preserved in ice, is discovered but something far more sinister is soon to follow it.

I loved the blend of horror with science and adventure with action that occurred throughout these pages. The discoveries made were unexpected and had me eager to learn more. What these discoveries could do, however, was brutal and bloody, leading this book to be as harrowing and horrifying as it was interesting and intriguing.

This had s bit of a Matthew Reilly feel to it and I was loving it. I will definitely be following this author and checking out more books from him

Ebook/Sci-fi Thriller: This is a faux thriller because there was nothing spectacular about it. Besides the characters being cookie cutters, the continuity and setting descriptions lacked.
I love reading books that take place in remote places like Antarctica or the Upper P. Except for the description of the nights being daylight, there was nothing to keep my mind in the setting. Four of the characters are wounded and have to travel across rough terrain to get to safety. It's glossed over until they get to the 90-degree drop. Okay, that is a nightmare I have, usually in a car, so to me, this scene should have been a nail biter. No, it is glossed over with two characters being left behind because one physiologically can't do it. But she does do it somehow, but it's never explained.
The cold should have been better described. Even though it's summer, there is still permafrost and any sence of cold, snow, melted snow, mud was never brought up, or maybe a coat wasn't necessary.
The lifeforms living on the island didn't make sense. From what I gathered, there were at least three different subspecies, which would make sense. But they don't eat each other. They somehow live in harmony with each other. No, that makes no sense. There is a reason alpha animals pack in small group or are alone. There are 100s of these creatures with little food source. The whole colony could wipe out a ecosystem, again makes no sense. The description of the creatures was never really explained well. I guess they were humanoid, warm blooded, mixed with reptile aka dinosaurs?
I barely finished the book only to have the ending dumb. I guess a creature took a thumb drive to the library and borrowed a computer and loaded the virus.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley and the publishers.

There is something about a horror set in the frozen landscape of the Arctic that draws me in, and The Colony does not disappoint! Fans of The Thing will love this one.

Callum Ross is an archeologist who is convinced by a dying archaeologist colleague to take his place on an expedition to the Arctic circle to do some research. This in itself would be interesting, but add some sabotage, murder, native legends, and prehistoric lizard birds to the mix and you get a fast-paced adventure that is really hard to put down.

The story starts with a soldier being killed by an as yet unidentified creature and never really lets up from there, while the back and forth style of telling the story from the point of view of different characters in different locations on the same timeline, and ultimately bringing these different storylines together at the end, worked really well for me.

I did find the book a little hard to follow in the early stages, I believe due to the number of different characters involved with Russian-sounding surnames, so that I sometimes had to stop to try to remember who a certain character was and what their part in the story up to that point had been. A small complaint though.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, which is especially impressive when you learn that this is Benjamin Cross’s first novel, so I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future works by this author.

Colony begins in the distant past as we follow the journey of a Neolithic hunter as he makes his way across the frozen expanse of the Arctic, searching for something. After falling into a deep ice cave he soon finds himself at the mercy of some unseen creature, one that makes short work of the brave warrior. With this one small scene writer Benjamin Cross sets the tone for a book that is steeped in atmosphere and fraught with danger.

Jumping forward several thousand years, we join archaeologist Callum Ross as he's pulled away from his holiday with his son by a colleague of his who needs Callum to take his place on an expedition to the remote Russian Arctic, where a team of scientists are exploring Harmsworth island as part of an investigation that could have a big impact for the Russian companies that want to begin drilling for oil on the remote wilderness.

Callum is just one of several scientists, from all kinds of fields, and expects to find little archaeological evidence on the island, but when he discovers the frozen remains of an ancient hunter it sparks a mystery as to what could have killed this man all those centuries ago. Unfortunately for Callum, he will get his answers when corporate sabotage and eco-terrorism leads to him and several others being stranded on the island when their ship is destroyed. Not only do they have to find a way to survive in the extreme conditions of the Arctic, but they're also being hunted.

Over the course of the book we begin to discover what these creatures are, though there's a pretty big clue early on that makes it an obvious leap of logic as to what these things used to be, though it's one that the actual characters seem to take a little longer to get to. It makes it somewhat amusing to see them trying to puzzle out what's really on the island using scientific processes, when if they took a step back a moment and took a less precise examination they'd get to the answer a lot quicker. But then a lot of the fun of these kinds of stories is being a step or two ahead of the characters and seeing them trying to play catch up with the reader.

In a lot of ways the book reminded me of the Meg series by Steve Alten. It deals with a group of scientists having to fight for their lives against vicious killer creatures that are the stuff from history and legend; and like some of the later books in that series and it's sister series The Loch, it takes place in a remote, frozen location. It definitely made Colony more enjoyable for me, reminding me of a series that I love, and much like those books it doesn't just rely in killer creatures to keep things interesting, throwing in corporate espionage and shady dealings too so that there's a much more recognisable and human enemy in the mix.

The characters make for an interesting mix of people too, and none of them are perfect. It would have been easy to have Callum end up being a big hero, for example, when things started to go wrong, but he's not. He's imperfect. He struggles in survival situations, having to grab for nearby weapons and hoping they'll work; he's not an expert gunman mowing down hordes of creatures whilst he protects his new girlfriend. He's also very human in his personal life thanks to the relationship he has with his son, and the struggles he goes through to try and be a good father whilst juggling his work. It makes him feel like an every-man, the kind of person you yourself might know and be friends with, and it helps to ground the more fantastical elements of the book.

The supporting characters are equally well made, and most of them get small moments to shine along the way. We get a good sense of what drives them, and quickly begin to learn how they're going to react in certain situations; who will step up to the challenge and who will falter under pressure. Even those characters who end up being revealed to have ulterior motives, who end up bordering on villainous, manage to make you feel something, and you end up rooting for them to do the right thing because you just don't want to hate them. There was one particular character in the book whose death actually made me cry a little, but I'm not going to tell you which one.

Colony is a fun book, one that takes a fantastical premise and takes it seriously throughout. It doesn't enter hammy or silly territory, and works so much better because of that. This is the kind of story that under other writers could easily be seen as ridiculous or over-the-top, but Benjamin Cross manages to make it engaging, tense, and emotional throughout.

This is a story about exploration & the dangers of what might be found.

This was such a fun, scary read. I love a good creature feature! The less you know going in be better, but I would recommend this for horror fans, as well as action/adventure readers.

Thank you Netgalley & Matador Books for this e-Arc!

I love a creature feature, and this one does not disappoint.. I really enjoyed it. A tagline I saw for this book was The Relic meets Jurassic Park. I love both of those books and authors. This definitely has a James Rollins/Matthew Reilly vibe to it.
There is quite a bit of blood and gore and the characters aren't very well developed, but I don't think you need that for stories like this. The writing is a little stilted, but you can tell the author has authority on the subjects. It was a little slow to get in to for me, but once I did it's a fast pace read with tons of action, drama, suspense, interesting history, and screams.

I don’t read a lot of thrillers, but I loved the idea of a mystery in the Arctic and the words “prehistoric ice mummy” really stood out to me in the book blurb, so I was eager to get my hands on this. Unfortunately, it read like a super forgettable action movie with a poor Rotten Tomatoes score. I had to push myself to finish.

My favorite parts included the incorporation of real history, archaeology and paleontology - I believe the author himself has a background in archaeology. The setting was fun and the general arc of the plot entertaining, but there were issues with the execution. It was all very convenient how it wrapped up, the pacing went from slowwww to go-go-go, and I hated the silly romances that added nothing to the general story. I also struggled at times figuring out <i>what</i> was happening in certain action scenes, and frequently had to reread sections in order to determine the correct sequence of events.

While <i>Colony</i> is a different type of book compared to what I normally read, I don’t think it’s warmed me to the thriller genre.

I voluntarily obtained an eBook version of this book free from Netgalley and The Book Guild in exchange for an honest review!

This was a brilliant book. It was dramatic and thrilling, with lots of emotions. The setting of the book was gripping and made the story sound more plausible. The characters were great

Dr Callum Ross is an archaeologist who has been recruited for a job in the Russian Arctic. There is a natural gas company who are hoping to tap into the underground gas reserves and build a large processing plant in the wilderness. In order to follow strict regulations they must undertake thorough examinations of the landscape and environment to show they will do all in their power to preserve the existing habitat. So Dr Ross is flown out and joined by other environmentalists, paleontologists etc.
During one of his explorations Dr Ross makes the remarkable discovery of an ice mummy. All evidence points to him possibly being a legendary figure. He sustained some horrific injuries when he died. What could have possibly caused them?
When other members of the expedition start to disappear it is clear that they are not alone on this frozen island. What is hiding in these caves? What could have caused such catastrophic injuries?

I couldn't put this book down. It had my heart racing, my palms sweaty and chills down my spine. There were lots of reveals and twists. It was so exciting to read, I absolutely loved it.
I don't want to talk to much about it incase I give anything away, but the constant feeling of hopelessness, then switching to never giving up, then back to hopelessness.... My poor heart!

I would recommend to someone who loves suspense, horror, monsters, action, blood and gore, explosions and battles. It's a real bum-clencher!

Quite an action-packed ride. Dr. Ross had to overcome so many obstacles in this intense page-turner. Part espionage, part archeological, it reads like Indiana Jones meets Jason Bourne.