I really enjoy post apocalyptic books or dystopian books and I liked the idea of this book. I felt like the plot was good but I think I’d have liked it a bit more in depth as the timeline jumped a little bit for me. I liked the whole genetic side of this book and how humans were being modified/created for survival. With the rise in AI I can see why this could end up being something that could happen in the future. I liked the characters in this book too and overall it was a good read.

I struggled with this book as it really wasn't my kind of thing. I have previously thoroughly enjoyed books by this author so was disappointed not to finish this one.

An interesting premise that provoked great book group discussion. Reasonably written but a disappointing end and unrealistic that there weren't any 'bad' humans - in a scenario where people have had to fight for resources to race to Antarctica, there would definitely be more morally questionable players on the ice.

Sy-Fy but not as you know it!

The novel is about how a group of survivors get to build a life in Antarctica after aliens give a 30-day warning of invasion.

The structure is a bit confusing in that it goes back and forth in time. The speed of the narrative structure makes it feel like a documentary rather than a science fiction novel.

As a reader, I was focused on the theme of what is the nature of humanity as the survivors try to survive the harsh, unforgiving cold through genetic manipulation.

You are left wondering what the future could be and what we would end up becoming as a species in a world focused on a deteriorating climate.

The lovely idea that was raised is the utopia created in Antarctica because of the shortage of people to begin with.

I found I wanted to stop and reflect, so it took me time to read.

I was given the novel free by netgalley.com for my fair and honest review.

Always a go to author for me with lots of intrigue and mystery. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to more by this author. I think this now means I've read all of their work and frequently recommend this author's writing to lots of people!

It took me awhile to get around to reading this one. Once I started it I couldn't put it do2n. I don't normally read sci-fi but, I enjoyed this one. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

Really enjoyed this - will definitely be recommending and looking forward to the next one by this author!

Ooh I love a dystopian thriller and books that make me think about the ways in which we are messing up the planet. This is a brilliant thriller. Loved the alien element, and the fact the story covers many years. Now looking at this author’s back catalogue with excitement!

When aliens attack and give the human race just 30 days to reach Antarctica, it is the start of a new civilisation for mankind. Struggling to cope on the frozen landscape, scientists start genetic experimenting to increase the chances of survival. But as the experiments get more complex, and the results more extreme, is there still a role for humans on earth?

Once I’d got past the alien invasion (hundreds of space ships filling the sky) I really got into Cold People. Tom Rob Smith has created a whole new way of living, as the survivors adapt to their surroundings and start new communities. It’s an engrossing story and a thoroughly enjoyable read. However, I did struggle with the ending, when Eitan enters the narrative. My main problem was that he reminded me of one of Sid’s mutants in Toy Story.

Overall a good read, with a some interesting ideas.

I'm always up for a dystopian novel but I didn't realise aliens were involved and that was a bit of a put off. I enjoyed many elements of the story but it just slightly missed the mark for me.

A diversion from previous books from this author. The start was slightly confusing but the rest of the book developed into an engaging dystopian read. The ending is tidy which gives a distinct satisfaction. Recommended.

Thank you Netgalley

Fascinating novel about an alien invasion. The aliens only appear at the beginning of the novel where they inform the population of earth that they have a short time to relocate to Antarctica or they will be destroyed. Those that make it to Antarctica have to try to survive in the harsh conditions with limited resources. The aliens carry out their threat for the majority of people that don’t make it to Antarctica and play no further part in the novel. The story looks at the different communities that are set up on Antarctica and how they experiment with genetic engineering to try and create humans that can comfortably exist in the freezing conditions on Antarctica.
A unique dystopian novel that is unlike Tom Rob Smiths previous novels that I’ve read.

I absolutely loved this terrifying, intriguing and compelling piece of speculative fiction. Dystopia is one of my favourite genres and having been a huge fan of Child 44 etc I was intrigued whether Tom Rob Smith could make the leap. I really enjoyed the themes of family and love, how the barren landscape was depicted and the absolute fear that leapt from the first third or so of the book. Great stuff.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Not my usual genre if I''m honest. I enjoyed this book and liked the way the plot developed. A recommended read.

Cold People was a huge disappointment.

The basic premise is that aliens have taken Planet Earth and sent humankind to exile in Antarctica. People have thirty days to get to Antarctica or face the consequences. Knowing that man cannot survive in that climate, the new community decides to embark on a program of genetic engineering to create people who can thrive in the ice – Cold People.

The novel is an exercise in world building. Tom Rob Smith imagines the evacuation and the panic that would ensure when it became clear that only a small number of people would be able to reach Antarctica in time. He tries to imagine the setting up of a new community with new rules, overcoming the logistical issues of life in the ice.

The trouble is, the world is not credible. Apparently the new world comprises four settlements with a total population of several million. They live on lichen they scrape from rocks. They never squabble. They are all on chatting terms with the new President, who imparts news by inviting the population to gather round. They set up homes and laboratories using spare parts cannibalised from the ships and planes on which they travelled. Former kings and presidents happily reminisce while working as bar tenders at the only pub in town. The scale just doesn’t work.

People don’t act like real people. In twenty years on the ice, nobody has become depressed? Nobody ever misses the things they used to have? Nobody ever complains? People die and nobody seems to be upset?

There are silly and impossible things – the aliens lift and deposit various world landmarks to Antarctica for no apparent reason. All the planes in the world land in darkness and most park up on an ice shelf with no difficulty. The world’s navies all land up in the same harbour at the same time (and then all sink within an hour of each other).

There is a very slow moving plot that introduces us to the family that will save mankind (let’s call them the Skywalkers) and to the bad clan that want to damn mankind (the Empire). OK, so that was a different story, but this one is just as simplistic and the characters just as thin. But unlike Star Wars, Cold People has no ending – it just sets things up for a sequel or three.

Oh, and the pacing is terrible. It keeps chopping to a backstory every time a new character is introduced – and those new characters seem to keep coming pretty much up until the end – which, of course, isn’t the end.

I don’t like to be scathing about a novel, but Tom Rob Smith has a Booker longlisting under his belt: we know he can do better than this.

I was pretty pleased to get an arc of this book: the only other book I’ve read by this author was Child 44 which I loved. I found this book difficult to appreciate fully. I read a lot of speculative fiction so the notion that I would find the ideas here implausible is silly. And yet… I could really imagine this as a made for tv disaster movie. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Tom Rob Smith's Cold People is a thoroughly bizarre piece of work: it starts with the entire population of Earth being ordered to relocate to Antarctica by an invading alien race, who then dissolve anybody who hasn't made it there by the deadline into fragments of light. You might think the rest of this novel might have something to do with the aliens, but they turn out to be an extravagant deus ex machina for what Smith really wants to explore. First, how humans adapt their society to the extreme conditions of Antarctica, with few natural resources; second, how they relate to the 'ice-adapted' people they create through genetic experimentation. Cold People's main problem as a novel is that it's, well, so cold. Smith has built a second career as a screenwriter and this cinematic gaze really doesn't help when translated into a different form. Characters have almost no interiority, and when they do, it's super-clunky, script notes rather than emotion: 'When he finally opened his eyes, he was crying. She hadn't seen him cry since Echo was born. She understood that this bridge reminded him of home and the family he'd lost. "Are you thinking about your family?"'.

Cold People also dances around interesting questions, but never quite engages with them - it's more focused on setting up a dramatic final showdown rather than really thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of humans as a species. Having said all that, the originality of this novel will make it difficult to forget. Smith cleverly never makes the aliens' motives clear, so we're left to wonder, along with the protagonists, whether they are galactic guardians punishing humanity for destroying Earth through climate change or rapacious colonisers herding humans into a reservation so they can exploit Earth themselves. I also liked how Smith resists certain dystopian tropes in his portrayal of the collective caring of some of the Antarctic communities: 'Weren't they better people now, better at caring for each other... fairer under even the most testing of circumstances? Maybe these virtues couldn't ultimately save them from extinction, but they could make the last decades of people some of the best.' 3.5 stars.

Thanks first must go to Netgalley, the publisher and Tom Rob Smith for the ARC of ‘Cold People’.

Having read other novels from the author I thought I’d try this one, despite the sci-fi genre not being my typical read.

Unfortunately despite finishing it, it wasn’t for me as soon as the Aliens began appearing, my interest dwindled.

Despite the content not sparking an interest Tom is a brilliant writer and the quality was outstanding as expected.

Aliens invade and issue humanity with an ultimatum: get to Antarctica within 30 days. Anyone who doesn’t make it dies. The aliens own Earth now.

20 years later…

The survivors of the human genocide have created a new society on Antarctica and, in the process, have begun and continued to go down a dangerous path of genetic experimentation to create a new ice-adapted human that will ensure the survival of the human race. But these ice-adapted creatures have other ideas…

I read Tom Rob Smith’s novel The Farm a while back and enjoyed it so thought I’d give his latest, Cold People, a shot - annnnd it wasn’t nearly as good, unfortunately.

The book starts off well with a truncated history of what humans have done on the continent of Antarctica, the most hostile region on the planet for humans to live. The entire alien invasion first act was really well done and exciting. So far, so good!

And then… the middle 65-70% of the book happened, which was so, so dull.

Smith’s world-building is excellent. It’s detailed, thoughtful and convincing - if this bizarre scenario somehow happened, I’d believe that humans would create a society like this out there. The problem is that Smith only does world-building - he forgets to include a narrative with any drive. Characters just putz about in the world and the novel stalls and dies under layers and layers of unending description!

It doesn’t help either that the characters we spend the most time with aren’t compelling. Echo, one of the new ice-adapted people, is sort of interesting when reading about her powers, but she’s got a very bland personality, as do her friends and family. The Israeli geneticist Yotam has a similar problem.

Things become slightly more interesting once we’re introduced to Eitan, Yotam’s prize subject, hidden away deep in the ice, though it takes an age to get that character into play. Once he starts doing things though, Eitan steals the show and the novel ends in a semi-interesting way - except it’s a case of too little, too late, and I’d stopped caring long before that point.

A couple of plot points stood out to me as odd. I never fully understood quite why an Israeli soldier, with no aptitude for science, would be hand-picked to become a geneticist’s assistant, seemingly purely because he was a closeted gay. Or how the surviving humans don’t talk about the existence of extraterrestrial life at all. I think it’s mentioned once and then never again by anyone! That’s just weird. I’d’ve thought it’d be top of most peoples’ conversation topics but I get it - the aliens aren’t really the point, they’re just the story catalyst. And these are only a couple of nit-picks - my real issue is with the (and it is fitting to call it this rather than me trying to be punny) glacial pacing of the story once the characters reach Antarctica.

I get the different levels of the title’s meaning. How the people are literally cold, and the attitudes of the aliens towards the humans/the ice-adapted people’s attitudes towards the humans/humans’ attitudes towards genetic experimentation subjects are all “cold” as in indifferent. It’s clever but… eh. Knowing this doesn’t really add much.

Humans playing god and having it backfire is a classic staple of fiction and Tom Rob Smith’s version of that here is a promising setup of literary sci-fi - the execution though is very underwhelming. I wanted to like it but quickly became disillusioned with this tedious novel and the experience turned into a dreary slog. Cold People is ambitious, original and so very boring. Try The Farm instead from this author.

“These weren’t stars, she thought, they were too bright, too big, and they were arranging themselves in formations  – they were ships, ships in the night sky. A staggeringly beautiful alien armada had arrived, the moment many had pondered but few had ever thought would happen.”

My thanks to Simon & Schuster UK for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Cold People’ by Tom Rob Smith.

In August 2023 the inhabitants of planet Earth are stunned when alien ships enter the atmosphere, claiming the planet as their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, and no reasons given for their actions. They issue one instruction: humanity has thirty days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist… Antarctica.

The novel takes place in two timelines. In 2023 it follows a handful of those who undertake the exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. In 2043 the Antarctic community has survived and its scientists have undertaken radical measures to ensure the continuance of the human race including genetically modifying a new generation of ice-adapted ‘Cold People’, able to thrive in the subzero temperatures. Yet how will the members of this new species interact with the original humans? No further details to avoid spoilers.

This science fiction novel focusing on the aftermath of an alien invasion is a departure from Tom Rob Smith’s earlier four novels, which were thrillers.

It focuses on the experiences of a few key characters and their responses to the challenges imposed by the planet’s new overlords. I like this approach as it makes the story more relatable. ‘Cold People’ is the kind of novel that the late Michael Crichton might write in that it examines the responses of humans to an external environmental threat.

I found this a fascinating premise though the thought of those Antarctic temperatures made me want to swaddle myself in blankets.

I would have liked to know more about the motives of the aliens beyond the theories bounced about by the survivors as well as what was happening outside of Antarctica. Still, the ending was structured in a way that allows for the possibility of a sequel.

Definitely an interesting read.