Ice Age: Stories

?Ice Age?, is both a collection of 10 stories and the debut of Author Mr. Robert Anderson. The jacket suggests that this writer is taking readers into the world of the absurd, and mixing the concrete of reality with the surreal. I would normally find that type of description to be pretentious and obscure, an attempt to infuse meaning into work where there is none. Such is not the case with this work. I put this book down many, many times, however the parts I believe I understood eventually took me in.This is the type of book that I would love to hear the Author read from and explain what he wanted his readers to glean from his words. I want to emphasize that I normally have no interest in this sort of work, and to the extent I, ?understood?, the Author I probably understood very little. This is not light reading and you must force yourself through passages that seem nothing more than collections of meaningless wordplay. However this man can write.Religion, life, death, and time are common elements among the 10 tales. The stories vary in their intensity, and more than one are very hard edged in their use of language and stereotypes. It is actually hard to comment on these, as it would not get posted here.To give an idea of what awaits the reader, the final story, like a few others, contains a person from real life, in this case Jimi Hendrix. If the idea of Hendrix visiting Los Angeles as he contemplates his recent death sounds interesting, that is just the start. Now imagine Hendrix with a Mother Superior breaking down the looking-glass reality we call life, and Hendrix then taking calls on a sort of 1-800-help line. He doles off advice and wisdom while laying out Tarot Card Hands and interpreting for the caller. This is just a small section of the story, and if it appeals, you will love the balance.This type of writing in my opinion walks a very fine line from experimenting with the absurd, and only being absurd. This Author stays on the legitimate side of the line, with some lapses that are either beyond me, or are just abstract word art.A very unusual read, which is very worthwhile if only to experience a very different genre of work.