Cold people by Tom Rob Smith

This is an astounding story with real heart, ripe for Sci-fi film adaptation and full of issues for consideration for those who like their sci-fi stories to challenge their thinking! After invasion by aliens (who are never seen or described) the world is given only one solution for the survival of humanity – relocate to Antarctica in 30 days or face extinction. For individuals and governments this announcement creates a frantic scramble to find a way to Antarctica for as many people as possible. With some countries and individuals being deliberately forward-thinking, and others just acting randomly in grasping at ways and means of getting to the frozen continent, there are always going to be problems for future survival. The cold is an enemy almost larger than aliens. Once on the frozen wasteland survival strategies must be explored and new ideas for the future involve the ‘creation’ of genetically modified ‘Cold People’.  The ordinary born community members also create modified ways of living that are both beautiful and profound. Seen through the stories of a few individuals, we see possibility for hope but also encounter the awfulness of a world gone wrong.

The mastery and the mystery of this story is that we never see the aliens, but their influence has been profound and strangely gracious in allowing some human survival. Bizarrely, humanity seems to be drawn to create their own ‘aliens’ through the genetic manipulation of the human genome and genetic interpolation from other species. How this collides with love, compassion and what we would define as ‘humanity’ is part of the power of this story.  The story is told through the perspectives and history of a limited number of individuals – there is a traversing of time and place as their stories are patchworked together in the lead up to the moving and confronting conclusion. Each of these characters have stirring and unique histories and attitudes that readers connect to or puzzle over.  This is a book to recommend highly for sci-fi lovers. It is not so much an alien invasion story, but a human survival story in the most awful of circumstances, with the vestiges of science being used to breed a future community with cold adapted features. There are huge leaps required over credibility hurdles, but none of these detract from the intense readability of this story.

Themes: Science fiction, Genetic manipulation, Antarctica, Survival, Alien invasion, Same-sex attraction.

Carolyn Hull