This definitely needs a sequel, because that ending was entirely unsatisfactory. I want to know more about Echo, the aliens, whether the Antarctic humans are going to survive a second near-extinction event, and what has actually been happening to the people who attempted to travel back to the warmer countries. Also, I thought the idea that humanity is living on just because those creatures still have a minuscule amount of human DNA left in them was ridiculous. Eitan and his kind are NOT human, they are something new. It’s like taking a piece of bark or a single leaf from a tree, then burning all the rest of that species of tree down and then claiming the species lives on because you still have that piece of bark, or leaf. I would argue that Echo and the others like her ARE human, because there’s enough of our DNA still present, they just enjoy an accelerated advancement that ‘ordinary born humans’ don’t have. In fact, I think if humans were forced to live in Antarctica, but had longer to adapt, we could possibly evolve to become a form of ‘cold people’.

“Cold People” has a brilliant concept; the idea hooked me the moment I looked at the blurb for this novel. Unfortunately, for me at least, the writing style drained a lot of the life out of it.

One day, with no warning, alien ships appear in the skies over earth. Within minutes, they begin broadcasting an announcement: humans have 30 days to reach Antarctica or die. No further information is broadcast; there is no way to communicate with or negotiate with the aliens.

Naturally, a desperate scramble for survival ensues. Initially we follow Liza and her family. Americans holidaying in Lisbon at the time of the announcement, their struggle is made worse by being in a foreign country where they do not speak the language. Luckily, they’re assisted by Atto, a tour guide who just that morning formed an immediate romantic connection with Liza. Atto comes back for her and helps her and her family as they join the worldwide evacuation.

There is no overview to this novel. It stays in the trenches with “ordinary” people. We see little of how governments might respond to this, how they might try to contact the aliens, what plans they might make, what negotiations might occur with other countries. Essentially, everyone hears the announcement, and five minutes later they’ve dropped everything, started running, and it’s everyone for themselves.

The only thing I found unrealistic about this was the speed with which chaos set in. I would have expected more disbelief, more delayed reactions, and a slightly longer period before everything fell apart. I am also sure that not everyone would have reacted like this, including governments. Smith has simply chosen not to focus on those things – although later in the novel he does spare some time for the plans of governments and those trying to help others.

And it’s here that my main problem with the novel emerges. Smith has quite a dry, distant writing style. Sometimes that can work well, but here it meant that I found it difficult to engage with any characters. We were just too remote from them. The novel skims over a lot of things, and without character engagement it felt rather flat.

To some extent Smith is writing about groups, rather than individuals. I found the homogenous nature of a lot of those groups a bit difficult to get my head around. How could a whole town be focused on a particular kind of emotional state? How could no-one ever raise questions about the disappearing women? The work the scientists were doing? Did no-one voice a moral qualm?

There are great ideas here, and if Smith had taken a different approach I think it could have been compelling and exciting. Instead it was difficult to engage with individuals, it took far too much of an overview approach to groups, and failed to answer some really critical questions.

The aliens have little role; they’re simply the mechanism by which people are forced to, and trapped in, Antarctica. We never know their motivations or what they’ve done once earth is “cleared”. Nor does anyone seem to make an effort to figure this out, or even think much about it. This seems a strange omission.

As I said, I loved the concept. I just wish Smith had explored it with a little more humanity and a little more realism. This is worth reading for the ideas, but I found the emotional content lacking, and the dryness made it not as compelling as I’d hoped.

This book begins with a couple of historical vignettes about Antarctica then moves to the present day in Lisbon where Liza and her family are on holiday. What happens next made this book quite the page turner for me. Aliens have taken the earth and told humanity to make its way to Antarctica. So it becomes a survival story and this was interesting enough but then in the middle it also becomes a Sci-fi story [genetic engineering to create ‘cold people’, quite drastic changes are made, and the ethics are questionable.
This was an engrossing read. It was interesting that the author chose to follow relatively ordinary people in his narrative rather than world leaders or more traditional hero type characters. I enjoyed this choice, the characters feel real (but of course, it leaves lots of stuff to think about like who made decisions and how did they decide, etc) . The ending suggests there will be a sequel.

This book starts out with a normal story about a family on holidays but that is where the normal ends. There is a lot happening in this book in the first few chapters that at times I felt really rushed when reading it, and the suspense was extreme.
Then we just forward in time and the book took a turn that I did not see coming and it took the winds out of my reading sails. It took me quite a while to adjust my thinking but once I did I started to enjoy the book again.
The writing is excellent and Smiths descriptions of the cold and the terrain of Antarctica are breath taking. You really need to suspend belief while reading this or be a Sci-Fi fan. Overall a very solid read.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the chance to read this novel.

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.
Cold People opens with a couple of historical vignettes about Antarctica before moving to the present day. Medical student Liza is on holiday with her family in Portugal when she meets-cute local fisherman Atto. The two form an instant bond which is immediately tested when aliens arrive in the skies and give humanity an ultimatum: humankind has 30 days to migrate to Antarctica or die. The bulk of the narrative is the story of this journey and then of the survivors, twenty years on from this event, eking out an existence in the most inhospitable continent on Earth and trying to find new ways to survive. About two thirds of the way through it becomes something else again.
It is hard to know what to make of Cold People. The narrative rarely stays with one character long enough for readers to become invested. Every character is introduced with the story of how they survived the invasion. So that even close to the end, Smith is still introducing new characters with multi-page backstories before moving back to the action. The premise of an alien invasion is never really explored, the aliens are never seen and the reason for sending humankind to Antarctica is only ever assumed. It is the deus ex machina that drives the plot but to no particular end.
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.
In the end though, where Cold People falls down is in its failure to deliver an engaging, propulsive narrative to drive its ideas. Smith has shown he can write thrillers but he brings none of those techniques to Cold People which is heavy on exposition and light on surprises or revelations.