The Ice Child

Book excerpt: Addressing a consistent set of themesmost revolving around characters who are in conflict with one another based on differences in culture, age, or personalityThe Ice Child offers eleven moving short stories by author Leon Arden. The collection introduces a wide cast of characters and scenarios. A husband and wife, touring Mexico, are confronted while on horseback, by savage bandits; a young man tries to rescue his mother from his fathers obsession, which is filling their apartment with more books than it can hold; a comic drama between two lovers is waged solely through messages left on their answering machines; a son wheels his sick father into a hospital and demands, at gun point, that he be given a heart by-pass; a lovely English woman arrives in New York to find she must share an apartment with a man she has never met; and a failed writer, with two friends, programs a computer to create a salable story, but ominously the PC also predicts their immediate future. Bookended by stories about youth and old age, The Ice Child presents a unique but highly entertaining collection of tales. "...Arden...manages to bring each story to life with a creative vibrancy and colourful prose...Savory, memorable morsels of brilliance from a clever wordsmith and a considerable talent to watch." -Kirkus Reviews