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

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Still, enough have made it there safely to begin a new life within the three towns and one small city constructed from the scavenged parts of the ships and planes that brought them.

Then flashforward 20 years and the survivers have created a new kind of human able to withstand the extreme temperatures. That’s the edict given to the human race when, on an ordinary day in August not too long from now, a superior life-form arrives in the skies above Earth. The most successful of these humanoid creatures is ready to be “integrated” into the community, but the dilemma remains: will this superior species, created by humans, save or destroy us?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. Some of the writing and the unravelling of the plot was wonderfully done, but I struggled with the storyline at times. 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.

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. This book follows the journey that the human race makes as it tries to work out who gets to go, each country has their own criteria and priorities. Cold People by Tom Rob Smith is inventive and optimistic about humanity while pointing out our flaws and I'm glad I stepped into this frightening futuristic portrayal. The start was slightly confusing but the rest of the book developed into an engaging dystopian read.A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Following a global apocalypse, humanity is forced to take shelter and in the inhospitable Antarctic. What follows was unexpected because, unlike most novels dealing with an apocalypse, the focus is not on why the invasion has happened or how humanity fights back against them. I read The Farm by Tom Rob Smith in 2014 and I can still remember the gasp I made when I realised the predicament the main character was in.

The world’s navies all land up in the same harbour at the same time (and then all sink within an hour of each other).I found this a fascinating premise though the thought of those Antarctic temperatures made me want to swaddle myself in blankets. Many of them are seriously abhorrent and need to be kept in secure quarters, deep in the ice below the surface. 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.

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. The time shift into the future diluted my compassion for Liza and Atto, they were just beginning a relationship and then suddenly they are like an old married couple – she’s busy saving people in the hospital wards and he’s off becoming the fisherman he always wanted to be, all while leaving their teenage daughter to stew in her own pubescent thoughts on her own journey of self-discovery.This is a story that really captured my imagination and the author has such a wonderful way with words that I was able to imagine his descriptions. Medical student Liza is on holiday with her family in Portugal when she meets-cute local fisherman Atto.