"Addressing a consistent set of themes--most revolving around characters who are in conflict with one another based on differences in culture, age, or personality--The 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 father's 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"