Cold People

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This is an epic story. The research that would have gone into creating this novel is unbelievable and the result is fantastic. There are quite a few themes throughout ‘Cold People’, and some are quite relevant to present day – like global warming, the ethics of genetic modification, capitalism, animal cruelty, egotism etc. Also the novel reflects on the ideology of love; what it is to be in love, to love in the romantic sense and also with familial love. One thing that was very distracting to me for much of the book was trying to figure out how this new society, which was fairly primitive, existing on native sea life, plants, and materials scavenged from airplanes and boats, was somehow creating sophisticated genetically mutated people. Granted, there was the prior existence of McMurdo Station (an existing science research station) but McMurdo was not conducting genetic experiments. Around the 70% mark it was finally explained that a top geneticist had brought equipment and knowledge with her, but it would have been helpful to have been told that earlier. They then sail to Antarctica in an oil tanker full of hundreds of thousands of people. Which then bumps into a cruise liner, which they zip line down to, then walk across a nuclear submarine on to the beach. I’ll let you digest that for a minute.

Arrival and Survival: those who successfully reach their destination have to find a way to live in this virtually uninhabitable place. Spellbinding . . . suspenseful . . . electrifying . . . A speculative masterpiece that will resonate with fans of Emily St. John Mandel, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jeff VanderMeer.” — Library Journal (starred review) When Yotam is put on trial, he is held in a museum because there are no prisons in Antarctica. “[T]he decision had been taken not to replicate the justice systems of the old world . . . [they could not] afford for a large portion of the workforce to be imprisoned when there were so few people left.” They created a society that did not have prisons and then imprisoned their new species that most people assumed would become a new working class. Discuss the inability of the surviving leaders to imagine a society that is not based around the oppression of workers. What does this reveal about who survived the journey to Antarctica? How do you think this mentality informed the values that they attempted to instill into the new race of people? Did they succeed? I adored this so much about this book and it does lean towards many different genres. The way people organise themselves, govern and also find new ways to manage and exist. Antarctica has research facilities so it is a given that there are going to be scientists and experiments involved, these are so intriguing and they start to add a more sci-fi and thriller edge to an already gripping story. After aliens occupy Earth in 2023 and enact "the largest genocide ever committed," all human survivors are forced to live in Antarctica, where genetic engineering becomes key to their survival as a species.

Table of Contents

We end up with four subcultures. The originating aliens, a group of genetically engineered beings (read monsters here) with mega super powers, the cold people, who can withstand the Antarctic cold weather and also have some super powers, and the ordinary every day people. The race is on to see who wins out as the new reigning population, and who they will take under their wing, and who they will banish to a lessor portion of the frozen world. And in the end will it remain status quo or will more changes be seen in the future? For one thing - I wanted to know about the aliens -what did they do with Earth - just wipe out humans and then leave? Why did they do what they did? Can anyone leave Antarctica? There was some mention of people leaving and never seen again - but did they die? or just resettle somewhere? and what about the animals? Yes, the Antarcticains were fishing but what about all the other earth animals? Did I love this? Hmmmm! I liked bits and pieces of it. I think this book needed a bit more editing. I'm a huge fan of Tom Rob Smith's novels, having read his previous books multiple times. His pace and style of writing make his novels gripping and hugely enjoyable from beginning to end.

Did the scientists succeed in creating a hybrid human that will perpetuate the human race, or did they simply create yet another monster of ambition, vainglorious selfishness and greed? Nothing changes, it seems. One of Yotam’s tests for Eitan to prove his capacity for empathy is to show him movies and gauge his reactions. What movie would you use as a standard for evaluating humanity? Watch that movie and imagine seeing it through Eitan’s eyes. What did you notice about this movie for the first time? 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. Unlike many other apocalypse stories, Cold People does not discuss the initial attempts to establish a means of survival on the ice but skips ahead twenty years. Why do you think Smith made the assumption that people would last that long?Ordinary-born people have to eke out an existence in the harshest environment on the planet, surviving minus-40-degree weather, six months of darkness a year, and scant resources. Yet people begin to do what they do best. New cultures emerge; teenagers fall in love and dream of a better life; and all the while, beneath the ice, something new is growing with dreams of its own. However, Cold People is a departure from his usual genres and whilst the writing is still fantastic, the story didn't grip me as much as his previous works. Part of this comes down to pacing - the flow of the story is frequently interrupted to explain futuristic developments - most of which can be inferred from context and are therefore unnecessary. Also, whilst the initial story of humanity's desperate bid for survival and journey to Antarctica is thrilling, the story falls off upon arrival with too many unnecessary characters, poor character development and a story that plods along with an obvious open-ended conclusion. If there's a book two, I'll be giving it a miss.

Genetic engineering plays an enormous role in Cold People and is highly controversial in our world as well. Look up some of the modern uses of CRISPR and discuss some theories for its future applications. What do you make of these developments? Now the Cold People- I feel that in the end - the scientists didn't really move 'humanity' along - yes, of course the Cold People are genetically different - not really 'human' at all - but in the end they are warlike, vicious, and have no problems wiping out a species/group that is weaker than them to control the entire Antarctic - seems very human to me. There are many insightful passages in this novel. I was interested to find out how this all would work out. (Pretty predictably, in fact, but like I said, there is going to be a sequel if that ending has anything to do with it.) My beef: serialized novels tend to have a ton of filler, and there was plenty of that here too. (I should have guessed that this might be a series just from the author's bio: he is famous for them!)Cinematic . . . Natural selection is magnificent in the abstract, when it works over millennia, but seeing it sped up to take place in a single lifetime, as Smith vividly imagines, exposes its brutality.” — Washington Post A zany, wildly gripping, dark futuristic fantasy that achieves escapist lift-off [and] recalls H.P. Lovecraft and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I loved this wild, imaginative, fast moving book and can’t wait to see the inevitable screen adaptation’ Vogue This was a fun read. The action flows nicely. The characters are memorable. The premise is that alien ships appear in the skies over Earth, and broadcast to the world that humanity has 30 days to make it to Antarctica. Every last one of them. Those who manage to make the journey find the climate as inhospitable as ever. Humanity struggles to survive in the subzero temperatures. Scientists race to genetically engineer a new breed of human who can not only survive but thrive on the planet's coldest continent.

There was a fair amount of repetition. For example, the phrase: "everyone liked him" was used in reference to several different characters, through a few decades and time leaps.After those humans who did not make the deadline are vaporised by the aliens, the remainder, a couple of million people, must make a new home in a hostile environment with what they have brought and what they can adapt from their surroundings. I was intrigued by the author’s scenarios of how the survivors created habitations, workplaces, social structures, and developed food sources in such bleak circumstances. Who would have thought that lichen could be so useful? Next came Child 44, later made into a movie on the big screen starring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Noomi Rapace. I gave this 4 stars in my review and went on to become the first Australian blogger to interview Tom Rob Smith.