Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of Cold People by Tom Rob Smith

Cold People by Tom Rob Smith

Cold People

by Tom Rob Smith

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Feb 2023, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

From the brilliant, bestselling author of Child 44 comes a suspenseful and fast-paced novel about an Antarctic colony of global apocalypse survivors seeking to reinvent civilization under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

The world has fallen. Without warning, a mysterious and omnipotent force has claimed the planet for their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, no reasons given for their actions. All they have is a message: humanity has thirty days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist…Antarctica.

Cold People follows the perilous journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. 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? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold?

Original and imaginative, as profoundly intimate as it is grand in scope, Cold People is a masterful and unforgettable epic.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"What lines, if any, shouldn't be crossed to save humanity from extinction? That question is at the heart of this stunning postapocalyptic thriller.... Smith, the author of brilliant historical and psychological suspense novels, shows his range is even broader in this triumph of imagination and empathy." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A brilliantly conceived postapocalyptic story that tackles a well-worn subject (a desperate race to save humanity) from a new and absolutely captivating angle. Smith's near-future world is wonderfully imaginative and rigorously detailed, the kind of made-up place that feels viscerally real. A real treat." - Booklist (starred review)

"A speculative masterpiece that will resonate with fans of Emily St. John Mandel, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jeff VanderMeer." - Library Journal (starred review)

"Part Frankenstein and part Nineteen Eighty-Four, the latest novel by the author of Child 44 is nothing if not ambitious. But after getting off to a great start, in which a family overcomes grievous odds to make it to Antarctica by supertanker only to get caught in an offshore logjam and risk missing the aliens' deadline, the novel loses its heart and narrative sweep to stiffly written scenes and didactic commentaries." - Kirkus Reviews

"Phenomenally imagined, intricately woven, and masterfully brought to life. It's so descriptive that rarely have I read a book where I've felt I am living side by side with the characters. As a writer, Smith really is one of a kind." - John Marrs, author of The One

This information about Cold People was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Tom Rob Smith Author Biography

Photo: James Hopkirk

Tom Rob Smith was born in 1979 to a Swedish mother and English father, both antique dealers, and brought up in South London, where he now lives. He started writing plays at school and continued at St. John's, Cambridge. After graduating from Cambridge University in 2001, he completed his studies in Italy, studying creative writing for a year. He also worked as a scriptwriter.

His first novel, Child 44, about a series of child murders in Stalinist Russia, appeared in early 2008. It was awarded the 2008 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the year by the Crime Writer's Association. It was recently a Barnes & Noble recommended book. On July 29, 2008 the book was named on the long list for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. In November 2008, he was nominated for the 2008 Costa First Novel ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Tom Rob Smith's Website

Other books by Tom Rob Smith at BookBrowse
  • The Secret Speech jacket

5 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Margo's Got Money Troubles
    Margo's Got Money Troubles
    by Rufi Thorpe
    Forgive me if I begin this review with an awkward confession. My first impression of author Rufi ...
  • Book Jacket: Our Evenings
    Our Evenings
    by Alan Hollinghurst
    Alan Hollinghurst's novel Our Evenings is the fictional autobiography of Dave Win, a British ...
  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

The longest journey of any person is the journey inward

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.