Anders Bodelsen’s Freezing Point is a short novel with a sharp, dystopian chill. The atmosphere feels stripped of warmth, as if even the smallest human gestures have been drained of feeling. That detachment gives the story its unsettling weight.

At the center is Bruno, sympathetic yet diminished, drifting from one failed hope to the next. His longing to see the woman he believes he loves is delayed and controlled by the doctors, every step turned into another test of obedience. The choices they give him mimic freedom, but each only tightens the walls around him.

Bodelsen threads in questions of class, showing how the wealthy buy eternity while the poor ration what little time they have.

The novel is tightly written, its careful gaps making you doubt what you see and what you don’t. It never meanders, yet it leaves just enough empty space to keep you uneasy.

The ending resists neat answers, leaving a sharper question: is eternity a gift or a curse? That refusal to close makes the book echo long after the final page.

I received a digital ARC from Faber & Faber via NetGalley. Opinions are my own.

A young man in 1973 becomes ill and agrees to be put into cryosleep until his disease is curable. Not a novel concept, even at the time the book was written. What makes this story interesting is its focus on the psychology of the protagonist, and how going under—and waking up several times—affects him. It’s never entirely clear whether his deteriorating psyche stems from his own paranoia or from an increasingly authoritarian and paternalistic society.

I found the story both intriguing and thought-provoking. It’s among the best books in this genre I’ve read, largely because of its exploration of the protagonist’s psychological unraveling. There’s a claustrophobic atmosphere throughout, giving it almost the feel of a horror story, with the protagonist trapped in his own mind and hemmed in by intolerant health professionals within a shifting cultural context that leaves him behind.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in what happens when someone is taken out of their own time, in how society adapts when people can choose cryogenic preservation to prolong their lives, and in a world where every organ can be artificially made.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

January, 1973. Bruno is shaving when his razor meets a lump and he cuts himself. He realizes that he noticed the lump recently, but it's grown larger. He sees the doctor, who says there's probably nothing to worry about but wants to do tests. Turns out there is something to worry about. Bruno has an untreatable form of cancer. But the doctor has a proposition for Bruno. He could choose to be frozen until such time as a cure is found, which the doctor thinks will be in 10 or 15 years. Bruno has a few days to decide. At first he's not sure what to do, but he suddenly decides to do it and wants it done quickly. When he comes back to consciousness, it's 1995. His cancer is gone and he is physically healthy, but society has changed so much during the time he's been frozen that his problems are just beginning. It's not a matter of simply starting his life from where he left off but without being sick. The world is different and as Bruno learns bit by bit what it's like now, he quickly learns he doesn't like it. But he's owned by society now and what can he do about it?

This book, although written over half a century ago, has so many resonances with the world today. As I was reading I kept thinking about people who have plastic surgery over and over again to try to look young and the people who want to live forever in some form. These are not new ideas of course, just the methods change as the available technology changes. When Bruno is offered the choice between living out whatever time he has left and being frozen so he can wake up cancer-free and pick up his life where he left off, he doesn't really give it that much thought. Would it have mattered if he did? Could he have even imagined the kind of world he'd come back to? Would he have been able to grasp that his status as a 'guinea pig' for this technology would cost him something in the end? Would he have gotten to the point where he'd consider the difference between extending an existence indefinitely and living a life? Whether he would've gotten to these questions before he was frozen or not, he was certainly faced with them when he was brought back to consciousness.

The book is extremely well written. I was hooked from the very beginning. Bodelsen creates a cold atmosphere throughout. The book starts in January, so we're cold from the start. Bruno has a recurring thought/memory of a time when he went skating with friends and realized that he was on thin ice, which was cracking all around him as he desperately tried to get back to shore. He doesn't have any close relationships, and seems a bit detached from others. When he's brought back from his frozen state, the environment he's in is sterile and cold--not in terms of temperature, but in terms of human connection and warmth. As reality slowly dawns on him, he struggles to make sense of his situation and to change it. Does he succeed? I'll leave it to readers to find out for themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent book and highly recommend it.

I loved this, it feels so fresh and modern despite being written in the 1960s. So many of the predictions are extremely prescient - the wellness grift industry, the tech bro obsession with elongating life and anti-aging, electric cars, the wilting of the publishing industry and more.

The wit is also unexpected and welcome.

‘Freezing Point’ follows Bruno, a man with cancer that cannot be cured with the medicine of his time, but in 20 years or so it will be possible. Bruno is offered the chance to be cryogenically frozen until a cure is found, no strings attached as long as he’s willing to be a guinea pig for the ‘freezing-down’ process, so he takes it. 22 years later, he awakens in a vastly different world and finds out that, of course, there were some strings attached all long.

I don’t want to spoil the plot of this book by telling you what the strings are or just how different the world is but know that this was such a brilliantly written (and translated) piece of speculative fiction. The disorientation experienced by Bruno is written very well, however at times it’s a little too well done and I found myself struggling to follow what was going on. I did also find myself wanting to know more about the future world than what we get to see- I suppose the vagueness and confusion around this plays well into the stories themes but it seemed like such an interesting future world that I wish it was fleshed out more. ‘Freezing Point’ was still a highly enjoyable read though, and I would recommend it for any fan or sci-fi or dystopian fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for the chance to read this ARC.

I can see why there’s renewed interest in this dystopian novel, with tech bros devising plans to live to 150 and dictators discussing organ replacement.

Freezing Point takes a somewhat unfashionable idea, cryogenics, and runs with it. Bruno, an ordinary editor at a literary magazine, discovers suddenly he has an incurable disease. Well, incurable now, in the sixties. The doctor has a plan - owing to his age and the nature of the disease they can try a new procedure and place him in cryogenic suspension until medicine can cure his disease. He wakes up in 1995 to discover, eventually, he is cured. In fact society he awakes in is one in which almost every aspect of social and economic activity is organised around extending life. Those who opt for a ‘natural life’ are condemned to die as soon as an organ fails, while those opting for ‘all life’ must work solely to earn life extensions. The vast majority of the population work in the healthcare sector. If there’s such a thing as a medicocracy then this it.

Bruno is an affecting everyman, frustrated at every turn in his efforts to escape his kindly warders and discover more about the wider future society. Not every punch lands. A romantic sub-plot is quite crudely drawn, and Bruno’s meta thoughts along the lines of ‘what about a story about a man who is frozen and wakes up..’ become repetitive. But the central theme, of how an obsession with living forever can drain life of richness and meaning, is vividly developed.

Thank you NetGalley and Faber Editions for this eCopy to review

Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen is a chilling dystopian novel that explores mortality, technology, and the cost of survival.

❄ Plot Summary
Bruno, a young magazine editor, seems to have everything until a cancer diagnosis shatters his world. Offered the chance to be “frozen down” until a cure is found, Bruno agrees, just after falling in love with a ballet dancer. Decades later, he wakes up cured, but the society he returns to is sterile and soulless. Freezing has become routine, individuality has eroded, and life feels hollow. Bruno must decide if survival was worth the price.

🧊 What I Liked
Concept: The premise is haunting and original, raising profound questions about progress and humanity.
Tone: Bodelsen’s writing is sharp and unsettling, perfectly capturing the coldness of this future world.
Themes: Mortality, love, and the illusion of control over life are explored with depth and nuance.

📚 Final Thoughts
Freezing Point is a thought-provoking novel that lingers long after the last page. Perfect for fans of Never Let Me Go or Brave New World.
A stark, icy meditation on what we sacrifice for the promise of tomorrow.

A well-told, entertaining parable: 4/5

Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen explores the implications of extended life, and centres around the fundamental question of should you live now, or instead focus on the prospect of a better tomorrow.

The vehicle for this exploration is magazine fiction editor Bruno, who when faced with a choice between living out his life with terminal cancer or being 'frozen down' until a cure is available, chooses the latter. He awakes into a different world, and the struggles he faces reveal the cost of his choice.

The ideas explored by Freezing Point are engaging, and there's plenty of fodder in even the early sections about the best way to live and ideas or the act of 'doing'. As the book goes on themes of freedom, the social compact and the danger of the 'ideal' shine through strongly.

This is definitely an ideas-forward book. The prose is so straightforward and frank that it occasionally comes off as humorously dry, and there isn't *tons* of plot or character development. It's obvious that these things, plus the genuinely interesting worlds shown, are really just the canvas for what Bodelsen wants to say about life. In that way it's more like a parable than a fully-fledged novel.

For its limitations, Freezing Point is well-constructed and executed, and enjoyable throughout. Recommended for those who like the idea of a book about ideas, less so for those craving careful plotting or fully-rendered characters.

Thank you to Faber and Faber, Netgalley and the recently deceased Anders Bodelsen for providing a free copy of Freezing Point, in return for an honest review.