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On Ice
Set in the near future, IceCorp is a UK-based company, specialising in the ‘quick freezing’ of accident victims using nanorobotics in order to preserve them for transport to a hospital. Scott works at their main depot as a mid-level technician.
Whilst he’s tormented by his arrogant boss on a daily basis, he’s fallen in love with one of the unidentified accident victims - Lilly - who has arrived frozen at the depot. She has remained unclaimed for almost a year and is due to be dumped out the back once that year is up.
Scott has been saving up his money and anonymously manages to rescue her from termination and has her sent to the hospital to be revived and repaired, hoping that when she comes to, she’ll feel the same way about him that he’s felt about her for the past year.
Scott has to deal with a worsening relationship with his boss Dean, his mother's demands he moves out and continuing the lie he’s been spinning about who he really is to Lilly as she starts to recover from the post-freezing amnesia.
Whilst he’s tormented by his arrogant boss on a daily basis, he’s fallen in love with one of the unidentified accident victims - Lilly - who has arrived frozen at the depot. She has remained unclaimed for almost a year and is due to be dumped out the back once that year is up.
Scott has been saving up his money and anonymously manages to rescue her from termination and has her sent to the hospital to be revived and repaired, hoping that when she comes to, she’ll feel the same way about him that he’s felt about her for the past year.
Scott has to deal with a worsening relationship with his boss Dean, his mother's demands he moves out and continuing the lie he’s been spinning about who he really is to Lilly as she starts to recover from the post-freezing amnesia.
111 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 18, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 3, 2019
Chilling!
It’s clear in this tightly written novella that Simon Dell has found his mature voice. Scott works for a kind of cryogenics firm which freezes the bodies of accident victims until they can be ‘repaired’ in hospital. He is bullied by his noxious boss and his dreadful mother. Falling in love with one of his ‘charges’, he uses his savings to have her despatched to the hospital to have her revived and restored, hoping that she will reciprocate his feelings. But ‘Lilly’ has her own backstory and things do not work out as Scott imagined.
I was reminded at first of Ian McEwan’s story ‘Dead As They Come’ (from In Between the Sheets) where a wealthy businessman falls in love with a fashion mannequin in a department store window. Dell’s story is equally freighted with an atmosphere of menace and illusion and, like McEwan it is told with sly irony and an air of weary disappointment. That said, On Ice is arresting and original. It is witty and sometimes downright funny. Dell takes us into the mind of a rather sad sociopath quite cunningly and we find ourselves hoping things will turn out all right. Dell’s depiction of Scott’s appalling mother is a treat. The surprising ending will chill you - but it won’t wipe the smile off your face.
It’s clear in this tightly written novella that Simon Dell has found his mature voice. Scott works for a kind of cryogenics firm which freezes the bodies of accident victims until they can be ‘repaired’ in hospital. He is bullied by his noxious boss and his dreadful mother. Falling in love with one of his ‘charges’, he uses his savings to have her despatched to the hospital to have her revived and restored, hoping that she will reciprocate his feelings. But ‘Lilly’ has her own backstory and things do not work out as Scott imagined.
I was reminded at first of Ian McEwan’s story ‘Dead As They Come’ (from In Between the Sheets) where a wealthy businessman falls in love with a fashion mannequin in a department store window. Dell’s story is equally freighted with an atmosphere of menace and illusion and, like McEwan it is told with sly irony and an air of weary disappointment. That said, On Ice is arresting and original. It is witty and sometimes downright funny. Dell takes us into the mind of a rather sad sociopath quite cunningly and we find ourselves hoping things will turn out all right. Dell’s depiction of Scott’s appalling mother is a treat. The surprising ending will chill you - but it won’t wipe the smile off your face.
August 10, 2019
Great read!
A seemingly simple science fiction story that is really about how the virtual world of modern infotainment has warped our ability to love in real life.
The characters are well-developed, quirky, and so very real; the writing is rich with more than just a pinch of black humor to spice it up.
A seemingly simple science fiction story that is really about how the virtual world of modern infotainment has warped our ability to love in real life.
The characters are well-developed, quirky, and so very real; the writing is rich with more than just a pinch of black humor to spice it up.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews