BY ANDREW MOODY

And then there was a new sound. A rhythm, dull and flat through the frozen air. Thud. Thud. Bang. Thud. Thud. Bang. I thought of the shields beaten by the Zulu impi. Thud. Thud. Bang. Thud. Thud. Bang.

Many interesting successes of our social media led culture include the massively increased ability of the general public to both read and write more than any civilization in human history. More people are reading and writing for the first time. Others, like Jim Pearce, author of Cold, have taken it upon themselves to use the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown to settle down and write the great novel they’d always wanted to write but had never had quite the same opportunity in which to both complete and publish it.

Rising temperatures have caused fires that burned landmasses, and the ash from these fires block out the sun. The resulting cold is extreme, like a nuclear winter…

Taking its cues from the apocalyptic fictions of JG Ballard, Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King, Cold is a genuinely successful novel on its own merits. The story is simple: after the collapse of society into a new ice age, a man battles with a band of survivors to find safe passage, not in a glacial Detroit or New York, but instead in Surrey, England.

Reminiscent of many classic horror siege movies, including Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, Straw Dogs, Dawn of the Dead and others, the reason why Cold works despite its eccentric narrative is down to the obsessive military detail that runs through the book like wire cables. One could assume that this kind of approach to the End of the World story wouldn’t be able to sustain its thesis, that its Surrey locale would make it hard to compete with its American influences. However, with Pearce’s strict, obsessive approach to military tactics, as well as the brilliantly designed “outside world” which its protagonist describes almost as a character in its own right, I found myself captivated and intrigued by its stoic approach to the sci-fi/horror novel, and its refreshing adherence to the rules of the genre.

The constant antagonists of Cold are the terrifying bands of post-apocalyptic soldiers attacking our gang of heroes for reasons too vague and menacing to fully comprehend. Pearce handles the battle sequences both carefully and with a genuine love for military operations, and with a genuine skill at describing geographical locations. He clearly knows Surrey very well.

^{Jim Pearce}

For me, the Amazon Kindle is the great democratic leveller for the publishing industry. Now, rather than being judged simply by the cover or the expense of a major hardback release, or even a famous name, every writer can now be judged by his or her own prose, rather than by some silly celebrity plea for relevance.

Suspenseful, empathetic and fuelled by a genuine love and passion for the idea of ‘the novel’, it’s clear that Jim Pearce has some real talent and ability as a fiction writer. His debut Cold held my attention throughout, not only with its intriguing and original spin on a classic genre, but with the eccentric way he deals with his careful nightmare, and the paranoid subtext of a doomed middle class becoming irrelevant in the face of climate disaster. A great fun (and very English) read, and a great opening act for a new fiction writer who seems willing and up for the game. Jim Pearce has written non-fiction before, as well as having a rather impressive job history as an oil driller in Saudi and Venezuela, and as a geologist in a gold mine in Ghana. It is clear that he has both the life experience and the literary and poetic craftsmanship for a successful career as a fiction writer.

Cold is a clever, warm-hearted attempt to defend both a way of life clearly important to the author, and put forward a warning about our current climate crisis. A solid, vigorous read, definitely worth the price of admission.

Jim Pearce’s Cold, published by Troubador, is available to buy at Troubador and also here on Amazon.