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

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This is definitely not what I was expecting, some weird romance between a giant sixteen year old girl with scales and a regular dude as boring as her father. Nevertheless, I thought “Cold People” a worthwhile story that was thought-provoking, instructive, and entertaining. Cold People tells the story of humankind's exile to Antarctica, and the struggles to set up a society on the planet's most inhospitable continent.

Some of the writing and the unravelling of the plot was wonderfully done, but I struggled with the storyline at times.I wanted to like it but quickly became disillusioned with this tedious novel and the experience turned into a dreary slog. I found this a fascinating premise though the thought of those Antarctic temperatures made me want to swaddle myself in blankets. The narrator, soon established as Elliot Chase, then zooms out to address the reader directly, introducing the players—most importantly movie star Lana Farrar. They set up homes and laboratories using spare parts cannibalised from the ships and planes on which they travelled.

In a way we may just deserve the fate depicted, a different species only allowing mankind to live in the coldest continent on earth.

Perhaps this was due to the jumps in time or because there was so much story here to unpack, the real hero was the science fiction.

Discuss other world-altering discoveries, the degree to which they were shared with the world, and their consequences. Cold People is a vastly ambitious novel, tackling the weightiest questions of our time in a form that rarely loses the tension of a thriller, despite the complexity of its subject matter. So I then thought we'd spend the rest of the book dealing with daily struggles of life in Antarctica over the days, months and eventually years of forming a new society. The first third is Harry’s story: two chapters pre Hogwarts, a chapter meeting the others on the train and then skip to post graduation. We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Shortly after Liza and Atto step foot on Antarctica we catch our breath and can’t help but feel for them of the hopelessness of their predicament. The planet’s population is given 30 days to relocate to Antarctica, which will become a vast reservation for the remnants of the species; there they will either die out or adapt, depending on their willingness to work together. I turned back, deciding I didn't want to eat badly enough to continue and spent some time thawing out my painful gloved hands in warm water.

The People: we’re introduced to a select few whose adventures we’ll follow, notably an American family on holiday in Lisbon, a boy the family meet there and an Israeli soldier (of course we’ll meet others as the story progresses) . 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. The goal was to develop powerful beings that could withstand the cold and perform jobs that humans could not do in extreme climate. I wanted to read this because I've heard good things about his Child 44 which I still intend to try just to see what he did with the characters there.

The themes of persecution and distrust of mutants, and apocalyptic global threats are definitely echoed in this novel. This was a very interesting science fiction where, with no warning, huge alien ships appear above the earth and people are told that they have 30 days to evacuate to Antarctica. The story is beautifully written with colourful characters you instantly fall in love with and the concept is totally novel and intriguing.