Cold People: From the multi-million copy bestselling author of Child 44

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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. Hope Town functions on a basis of community care and mutual aid whereas McMurdo City is more martial and operates like the governing structures we’re accustomed to. It’s most definitely a piece that I believe will continue to prick my conscience and cause me to re-evaluate how I live my life, the good things and the bad. But the story is very well told and as a result I quickly became invested in the fate of the key players, though curious as to how this tale would retain my interest for the many pages remaining – I hoped it wasn’t going to become a grim battle of attrition with nothing more interesting to impart.

Author Smith has a terrific imagination and the new beings he comes up with are as fascinating as they are varied. Plus I’ve been trying to decide if a super tanker could hold one hundred thousand people on its deck and that’s been a total distraction! When aliens attack and give the human race just 30 days to reach Antarctica, it is the start of a new civilisation for mankind. 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. Because of the dwindling population, the new society drives home over and over the value of each person.We do not learn how this was done or the problems associated with strangers cooperating and surviving in this bleak, cold, uninhabited wilderness. Unfortunately, I found myself dissappointed multiple times with the direction of the book as it continued. Foremost amongst them is an underlying discourse suggesting that humans might well have been deserving of their fate and, whether this is accepted or not, what could they do to overcome a challenge which presents a real threat to the very future of Homo sapiens on this planet.

So, they end up creating a super powerful alien – of all things (weren’t they put here in the first place by aliens?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. The aliens referred to in the synopsis are really no more than a McGuffin and after they have set the plot in motion they don’t appear again and are only referenced in passing so if you’re looking for conventional SF you may want to try something else. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? The goal was to develop powerful beings that could withstand the cold and perform jobs that humans could not do in extreme climate. How do these considerations stack up next to the eventual consequences of Fu’s eventual world alterations?

Smith’s latest combines a number of electrifying sci-fi set pieces with a breathtaking insight into the human instinct to love life and each other, no matter the cost. History has proven that we humans find it difficult to peacefully co-exist with anything, much less another race or species. When I reached the end of the book I felt a little frustrated because I wanted to know what the aliens were doing with the rest of Earth. g., alien invasion, genetic engineering, and the hardships of Antarctic and post-apocalyptic life, to name just a few.There are silly and impossible things – the aliens lift and deposit various world landmarks to Antarctica for no apparent reason. The themes of persecution and distrust of mutants, and apocalyptic global threats are definitely echoed in this novel. The concept of Cold People appealed to me as it featured topics I enjoy, including survival in a post-apocalyptic world, mysterious alien contact, the Antarctic, and establishing new societies under challenging circumstances. It's a meager existence, featuring lots of fish soup, tea and “tobacco” from lichen scraped off rocks, soap from walrus blubber, and clothing perpetually re-stitched and re-purposed. I understand I can change my preference through my account settings or unsubscribe directly from any marketing communications at any time.