Tom Rob Smith what have you done? Readers may be familiar with his previous books. For example, his first novel, Child 44, published in early 2008, was inspired by the true-life case of Andrei Chikatilo, who committed a series of child murders in Soviet Russia. It was awarded the 2008 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year. This was followed by Smith’s sequel to Child 44, and the final novel in the trilogy, Agent 6, was published in 2011. All novels that I thoroughly enjoyed. A standalone novel followed called The Farm (2014) and this is a psychological thriller novel set in London and Sweden.

So now Tom Rob Smith throws a curved ball and his forthcoming novel is “Cold People”. It is like a modern-day War of the Worlds. As a teenager, I lapped up H G Wells, Arthur C Clarke, and Asimov. My tastes have changed (it seems) and this book is for sci-fi fanatics I guess. I hated it.

The book switched from one time-frame to another. Starting 2000 years ago with an adventurer arriving in a totally inhospitable land called the Antarctic. We then jump to a merchant based in the Antarctic who plundered the Far East for riches about 200 years ago. He would like to retire back to the UK but he is persuaded to stay to exploit the Antarctic.

Then another time switch to present day Portugal, Here we meet a family on holiday in Lisbon. The daughter is attracted to a Portuguese man who is plying a trade guiding tourists around on his boat. Whilst enjoying his company some form of Aliens take over Earth. They rush back to the hotel to find the daughter’s parents. An ultimatum is broadcast and all earthlings must move to the Antarctic by a certain date. Hope you are still with me!

The tourists and the guide’s family set off in the family’s vessel. It is packed with friends. Bizarrely they manage to survive but soon realize they will not get to the Antarctic by the deadline. Somehow the younger members manage to transfer to an oil tanker after a port stop that is miraculously refitted in an instant to cater to thousands of migrants. Unbelievably – forget any logistics – they arrive in the Antarctic by the deadline. On the northern tip of the Antarctic the “Drake’s Passage” is crammed with vessels from liners, and tankers to small boats. The main characters have to decide whether they can stay on the tanker or try to land on the inhospitable continent. The ultimatum says they must be on the Antarctic so they cajole others to move on land. Very fortunate as on ultimatum day a wall descends between land and sea.

Another time frame shift and 20 years later 3 cities have survived – you really need to suspend any logic on how they have survived. In the meantime, scientists with the Cold People Project have developed a being that is super tough, strong and has adapted to the severe conditions of the Antarctic.

Sorry, but my patience ran out at this point! Not at all believable, and you need a warp-speed imagination to live with this unlikely scenario. I hate castigating an author’s hard work but please go back to writing thrillers! This a personal opinion and suspect others will love it! Good luck Tom!

Very good. This was interesting and not what I was expecting, in a good way. I loved Child 44 and this new novel was very different. It is extremely imaginative and well thought out. I enjoyed the characters and the plot development was unexpected. I’d recommend this to readers of science fiction.

Today I am delighted to be reviewing Cold People by Tom Rob Smith. My thanks to the publisher for supplying me with an advance copy of the book for the purpose of review. I have reviewed the book honestly and impartially.

I’m a great lover of dystopian fiction and I’m always looking out for new authors so I jumped at the chance to read Cold People by Tom Rob Smith. When I read the blurb I thought the premise was fascinating and I was intrigued to see how Tom Rob Smith envisaged this scenario playing out.

What follows was unexpected because, unlike most novels dealing with an apocalypse, the focus is not on why the invasion has happened or how humanity fights back against them. In fact, there is very little detail about who the invaders are, why they have chosen Earth as their target or what they want. The focus is on humanity and its reaction to the invasion, how they intend to survive and I found this absolutely fascinating.

This is a book of two halves. the first half covers humanities initial reaction to being told they have just 30 days to travel to the most inhospitable region on Earth, Antarctica, or risk being annihilated, and how they make that journey. Who gets to decide who will go, when not everyone can make it, and how do people deal with the difficult and heartbreaking decisions that have to be made. I have read other reviews which say that the characters in this book were underdeveloped and they could make no connection with them. I completely disagree. Reading the first section of this book carefully and intelligently tells us everything we need to know about the main players in this book and sets the stage for what is to come and how they will behave when faced with trying to survive in the hostile wastes of Antarctica and I think it is very cleverly done.

Once the survivors reach Antarctica, the real battle for survival begins. Marooned in a place that humanity was never designed to live, with the limited supplies that could be gathered in the rushed exodus, this is a story of man starting from scratch and adapting to their new circumstances. However, the focus is not just on the day to day survival of the humans who made the journey, but the future survival of the human race in a place in which they are not meant to survive. It explores the ingenuity and tenacity of human nature, the sheer WILL to ensure that the species survives against all odds. But, added to this, is a large dollop of hubris, the arrogance of people who assume that their refusal to accept there are moral boundaries that should not be crossed and that there will be unforeseen and dramatic consequences for doing so.

This book is brave, thoughtful and thought-provoking, tense, frightening but, ultimately, hopeful. As someone who enjoys this genre and reads a lot of it, I can honestly say that this has been one of my favourites in recent years, so much so that I have pre-ordered the hardback of this novel to add to my collection and I look forward to rereading it at a future date. It is one of those books that I believe will reveal more and more ideas for consideration on repeated examination.

Having read all the work by Tom Rob Smith, I squealed with delight when my NetGalley request was approved. I wasn’t disappointed!

Cold People takes us on a journey to Antarctica. The world as the people knew it, has ended. Humans became subspecies and had thirty days to leave everything behind to relocate to the coldest and harshest place on Earth, Antarctica.

Amongst the survivors were Liza and Atto, who briefly met before the massive Exodus started. Liza was an American medical student, holidaying in Portugal with her family, when she met Atto, a son of a fisherman.

Against all odds, the duo battled hardship to reach Antarctica, where they set up their new home with other survivors from all over the globe.

Twenty years later, they are married and have a daughter, Echo. She is a bit different than the rest of the locals. She is an ice-adapted child, created in McMurdo City as part of the Cold People project.

McMurdo City is swathed in mystery and prestige, only the best of humanity are stationed there to work.

No one knows what the scientists have been creating and hiding in their labs… Those creatures aren’t happy and they plot revenge on the humans…

I really enjoyed this chilling read. I was captivated from the beginning all the way to the end.

I warmed to the characters, especially Liza and Atto’s spellbinding love story and surviving against all odds. I also liked Echo, their genetically modified daughter. She wasn’t fully human and she felt different her whole life, searching for her place in the world. I am glad she’s found it in the end.

There were some other characters in this book, like Yotam, the scientist from McMurdo City. Originally from Israel, his work was his life. He was extremely lonely and he projected all his expectations into his creation, Eitan.

Eitan was a real piece of work. I won’t tell you what happened, but I was so annoyed by his actions.

Overall, it’s an utterly chilling, dystopian read. I definitely recommend it.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for approving my NetGalley request to read and review this title. Cold People will be published on 19/01/2023.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Just brilliant. A different spin on an apocalypse. Loved this book and can’t wait for the hopeful sequel

Cold People follows people from all over the world who are forced into exile in the Antarctic by an alien force. They use their skills and knowledge to try to set up new communities and to produce genetically adapted 'people' to be their future. These are the Cold People.
I found the book and its concepts very clever, and the writing was excellent, However it was not really my sort of book, so I cannot say I enjoyed it. I found it too lengthy, and some of the survival techniques seemed farcical.
I was also surprised to find the book ended so suddenly. - when I thought it was in the middle of a chapter.

Absolutely phenomenal! I’ve read the Child 44 series and this is such an incredible departure from those books in that Smith has created a totally new world, set some time in the near future.

It’s a real thriller; earth has been invaded by aliens and survivors are banished to Antarctica. But it’s far more complex than that. The new race have modified genetic structure and their adaptation is incredibly well imagined. This is real dystopian fiction with a satisfying amount of pseudo science mixed with relatable people that the reader can root for. It’s chilling, literally and figuratively, with a palpable sense of isolation and chill. It’s well paced and original and is plausible. I’m not a huge fan of dystopian fiction, but this is so well written I was engrossed throughout by the plight of humanity. Brilliant stuff and can’t wait for more from Smith who, in my view, is highly underrated.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

I normally go for thrillers and mysteries so this was a complete change of direction for me. I'd enjoyed Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 trilogy and I was keen to read this one. It's unusual, it's sci-fi, it's adventure, it's futuristic but most of all, it's a very good story, well told.

There's a lot of technical stuff that the author managed to simplify enough for me to keep up with the plot. The story is thought-provoking and the ending leaves it open to a sequel which I look forward to.

This book is an easy 4 stars.

A gripping thriller that keeps you turning pages long into the night. From the exodus of the human race to the frozen challenges of Antarctica, to creating genetic creatures able to thrive in the cold, and then finding the consequences of these new cold people. One lot were raised as scientific experiments and one lot were raised in loving families. Is there a place for everyone?

This is a very well written story of survival. Aliens are threatening Earth, allowing the whole world’s population 30 days to make it to Antarctica, the only place where they will be permitted to live. Countries fight to get their elites and their scientists to the region so that the survivors have the best possible chance to adapt and thrive. This was a fascinating read, but I was not expecting it to be so science fiction based, which is just not a genre I particularly enjoy. Thank you to the publisher and author for the Advanced Reader Copy and to NetGalley for making it available.

I really enjoyed this! With this author, the reader does know that we will be in for something a bit different, but this was brilliant!
I did enjoy the science fiction aspect of this book, but it was intriguing to find just how much of this book was spent in dealing with them - I am trying not to give any dreaded spoilers here!
The science part of the book may be not exactly possible or probable, but hey, it's a novel! I did enjoy the speculative aspects of this story, and who can say what may or may not happen?
If there were any sequels I would love to read them, yet it is possible that the book will be left exactly where it finished - I really cannot tell. Either works.
All in all, some hours very well spent on my part in reading this book, and as I was doing that snowed into my house with my steep drive so icy I could not get out, and my water supply cut off, it seemed rather apt. It is not a story that I will forget for a while!

When Aliens take over the planet the population are told to relocate to the Antarctic.
A dystopian tale of hardship and the fight for survival in extreme circumstances.
I found this story interesting but unbelievable in parts.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publishers for the advanced copy and the chance to preview it.
I loved Child 44 and was keen to read this one although it's usually not my genre.
I really enjoyed it although I felt parts of it were a bit slow. it's the story of an alien invasion and the only place humans are allowed to live is Antartica. I was disappointed that we never heard anything about the aliens, what they wanted, why they allowed some human life to exist after they took over the world. I thought that was a big gap that could have been exploited. Definitely worth a read though!

Not for me. I am aware of the author's previous books, this is a diversion into SF/dystopia. I have read a lot of both so requested to try. Positives - the action and developments rattle along at a good place, the main characters are engaging and relatable (at the start), I can imagine these aspects working well as a crime/thriller writer. Unfortunately there were too many flaws for me.

There is lots of death and hardship, which seems to be something whirring along in the background as the characters race along to the next plotpoint. There is next to no reflection, impact on people explored, none of the detail I would expect in similar works to build the portrayal of the world and situation. As a result the engagement with the characters and their fate drops off. Without going into spoilers some of the other details of humankind's ongoing survival/progress suffers from similar issues.

Key to a book like this is world-building, and due to the issues above I felt it increasingly hard to engage with the people and their fate. I may try one of the author's earlier books which I suspect this style is more suited to.

Having never read a Tom Rob Smith novel, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, Cold People was truly gripping, right from the beginning.
Alien ships appear in the sky, they issue a warning to all of mankind stating they have 30 days to reach Antartica before the planet is wiped of the human race. Panic ensues, people do what they can to reach the most uninhabitable place on earth. As this is unfolding, a love story begins. The story moves forward and we follow the journey of the couple who were unable to have children of their own so they join a project where the female protagonist is implanted with a genetically modified embryo which has been modified to withstand the treacherous cold. Echo is the modified child.
Echo has her own journey - she is called back to the research facility where she will be put to work with the other 'cold people'. It is this final part of the puzzle where the books ramps up the adventure. Will Echo stay with the humans or will she abandon them to live with her own kind? Can the humans and Cold People create a world where they can live in harmony?
A fast paced thriller that leaves the reader wanting more.

I am not usually drawn to science fiction, but when I saw that a writer I enjoy and admire had ventured into the genre, it thought it would be worth putting my prejudices aside and going outside my comfort zone to see what it might be like. There is no doubt that Tom Rob Smith is a compelling storyteller and this tale of humanity’s exodus to the Antarctic and their strategies for survival in the newly established colony is certainly attention grabbing and page turning. I found that I enjoyed the exodus story more than the story of scientists’ developments to create a race of humanoids to withstand extreme cold temperatures.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

I was gripped by the opening of this very different type of Dystopian fiction. The build up to quite a cataclysmic and downbeat denouement was well done but a little drawn out. Quite blatant in the messaging that Humanity ultimately destroys what it creates in haste when we do not consider the longterm effects on resources that are always finite. Beautiful and stark description of the stark and barren environment which is at once vast and claustrophobic!

Firstly, thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for the opportunity to read this advanced copy.
I'm not usually a science fiction reader and maybe this is why this book didn't quite hit the spot. I just found it to far fetched for me.
So, basically aliens arrive above the Earth, tell the humans to go to Antarctica or die. This part of the book is exciting and a real page turner. But i was thinking, how on earth will humans survive on the coldest most inhospitable part of the planet. Millions make it to Antarctica and yes many, many survive. Hard to believe but this is science fiction.
The next part is strange and is set 20 years in the future. I won't give anything away but I just couldn't work out how, what came to be, was achieved. It just didn't seem possible but again this is science fiction, so anything is possible, right?
Saying that I found the middle part a bit dull and although it picked up at the end overall I wouldn't be tempted to read anymore by this author unfortunately.
I really wanted the characters to be a bit more fleshed out, I really enjoy a book where there are proper conversations and where the characters are fully formed in my mind. You never really get to know any characters fully as once one is introduced the story moves on to someone else.
The ending was definitely open ended so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Cold People 2 in the making.

Phenomenal!
I was a bit alarmed by the appearance of aliens as I am not very keen on that as a genre but they were very much a vehicle to bring about cataclysmic change and did not feature heavily in the story, one of survival of the species in a hostile environment and hostile world.
Each aspect of the story, from the mass evacuation event to the building of a new city and life and the evolution of the species were so well described that you could feel the cold falling out of the pages.

I love books by this author so I was so excited to receive a proof copy. I wasn't expecting a dystopian sci fi when I picked it up but I absolutely loved it! The story was extremely original and I had no idea where it was going to go next. As a result I couldn't put it down.

The book starts when an alien ship threatens the earth and gives humanity 30 days to reach Antartica which is the only place they will be allowed to exist. There are no negotiations, no demands and no reasons given for their actions. What follows is a frantic attempt by the world to reach Antartica and survive its extreme climate. The inhabitants will need to evolve in order to survive in such a cold place. Can they build a new life and sustain a future in such cold conditions?

I found this book fascinating and loved the storyline. I did have to slightly suspend belief with the alien invasion but there was little mention of them through the story which was mostly about the survival of humanity. I would actually have liked to have known more about them, who they were and what their intentions were.

I loved reading about the arrival of Liza and Atto and how they began life in such a harsh environment as they arrived in Antartica. I felt it would have been interesting to have followed these characters more in their early years on the new continent. The story jumps another 20 years as genetic engineering advances have been made and a new group of 'cold people' are emerging. We meet Echo, the daughter of Atto and Liza who is adapted to life in Antartica and Eitan who is the most radically advanced of the 'cold people' and still living in confinement in the Science facility in McMurdo.

Although there is a satisfying ending to the book I would love to follow the new generation of 'cold people' and their life in Antartica. A sequel would be fab!
I don't normally read Science Fiction but this book is a fabulous mixture of a multitude of genres; science fiction, dystopian, thriller and romance. I loved it!