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I wrote Icebox nearly fifteen years ago. It was the second novel that I’d written, and the first to get published – in 1999.
It’s difficult to introduce it now, because from this distance it appears to me to have separated out into two parts, like salad dressing. I can see the obviously good bits and the obviously not-so-good bits quite distinctly. I need to shake it up in my mind again so that I can see it as a consistent whole.
So as a few curious Litnetters are reading it, I’ll read it too. I think I know what to expect, but I might be surprised. In either case, I don’t want to prejudice anyone else’s experience by saying what I’d imagine will come over well and what won’t.
I’ll pass on some factual stuff though, to give it context – although I hope none is necessary. My feeling is that everything a reader needs ought to be there between the covers.
I wrote Icebox in the evenings when I was working in Amsterdam. I had an apartment overlooking a canal, and I’d sit there at my desk by the window as tourists went past in glass-topped boats outside. They’d wave at me and I’d wave back. I used to wonder whether the guide had incorporated me into his spiel. “On the right we have a typical mediaeval house. Note the stepped gable, the hook at the top for winching furniture into the windows, and, on the second floor, the Englishman with the three-day stubble and two bottles of Pinot.”
The theme for the book had been percolating in my head for a year or two – which isn’t long, for me. I’d been reading a lot of books about cutting edge science, particularly cryonic suspension. Apparently it’s wildly expensive to have yourself frozen after your death, and that struck me as the ultimate deferred gratification – to work your whole life to earn a longshot at a second one.
And once I started along that path of speculation, all sorts of questions started to occur to me. What would be your motivation for doing that? How would it influence your behaviour in this life? What would your friends think?
So this isn’t science fiction. It’s fiction with some science in it. The science is no more the point of the story than the ball is the point of football.
I’ll be interested to hear what people think, and I’m happy to discuss it. I’m probably more critical of it than most readers, so don’t feel the need to be complimentary– though polite would be nice. I’ll try to answer any question – about the book, the characters, my intentions and approach.
Thanks for taking the time for this exercise. However you may react to the book, that commitment to reading it is a compliment.
If you have not already got a copy, it is available on amazon and at (most) UK libraries.
