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Rating: 
Summary: "FAST-PACED AND EASY TO READ"
Review: "FAST-PACED AND EASY TO READ, The Ice Sculptures reconstitutes the world in which movie studios covered up for the indiscretions of stars. It provides an escape from the tell-all celebrity world of today to a Jacqueline Susann-like world of dark secrets and designer labels-but with twenty-first century sex." Reviewed By: Edmund Miller, PhD, Author of Night Times
Rating:
Summary: "LIBERALLY LACED WITH SEX AND SIN"
Review: "LIBERALLY LACED WITH SEX AND SIN, this novel takes us into the world of Hollywood, where being open and gay can destroy an actor's career-but being closeted and gay can destroy his heart. The author takes us behind the scenes of Hollywood sets, Hollywood homes, and Hollywood sex with an insider's authority and knowledge. And just as in real life, Michael Craig deftly shows us that coming out of the closet can have its price." Reviewed By: Jonathan Cohen, Author of Bear Like Me
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect to drink while drinking a frozen margarita
Review: "There was also talk of wild, Caligula-style orgies featuring copious amounts of drugs and some of the biggest names in Hollywood"
There is nothing more riveting than gawking at the train wreck life of a famous Hollywood star as they battle drugs, addiction and debauchery. The Ice Sculptures is Michael D Craig's first novel, building on from his successes with a Madonna Book and an 80's music Trivia book.
Perfectly suited to reading while lazing around the pool sipping a frozen margarita!
Ice Sculptures is the story of Tim Race a Hollywood superstar who has risen his way to the very top of the fame tree. Or has we find out slept his way through the casting couch. Tim has the looks and fame to be anything he wants to be, but Tim has a dark secret, known only to the industry insiders and close friends.
Set in Hollywood amid the trappings of fame and fortune, Ice Sculptures weaves a behind the scenes view of the real Hollywood. It tells the story the paparazzi don't tell and the studios keep under tight wrap to protect their billion dollar investment in their stars. Craig has used his first hand knowledge of the film industry to create a riveting homoerotic tale.
The hapless Tim is appealing to every women and gay man on the planet, and Craig creates just the right amount of sexual tension and insight into his character. The backdrop of Hollywood is fascinating and familiar to anyone who has ever visited this magical town. Places and situations are taken right from the cafes, restaurants and streets of tinseltown.
Tim's best friend the New Zealand born actress Raina is suggestive of Tim's Character being based on Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The story is littered with current names such as Heath Ledger who the man eating Raina sets her sexual sights on. Not since Rock Hudson has their been a gay film star that has been so big but so closeted as Tim Race.
The reader is left wondering who the older producer Tim trades sexual favors for a part in his upcoming movie may be. Or we wonder which of the gargantuan porn star's Craig uses as his inspiration for the journalists' trade.
If there is one complaint that I have about this book, it is the lack of depth into Tim's character, but this may have been Craig's intention to display Tim Race's lack of sophistication and simple mindedness.
I highly recommend Ice Sculptures as a book to read while lazing round the pool on a sunny afternoon drinking a frozen margarita!
Rating:
Summary: Great first 178 pages, but...
Review: A bright, breezy gay novel with a surprisingly homophobic ending, The Ice Sculptures tells the story of Tim Race, a closeted gay Hollywood superstar trying to rebuild his life after the breakdown of his relationship with his agent and lover of eleven years. We follow Tim through the Nineties as he gradually inches out of the closet and learns to love again through his relationship with a beautiful Mexican street boy, Jaime...only to "go straight" in the last few pages and marry his fag hag/beard! Although the vast majority of the novel is persuasive and dynamic, Tim's sudden "conversion" to heterosexuality at the book's end is clumsily written ("They had tested the waters before, but Tim had found the temperature too cold for his liking. This time, however, the temperature was perfect...") and jars with the rest of the book, in which he shows no hint of bisexual leanings or attraction to women, and is liable to leave many readers feeling cheated. Raina's switch from loyal friend to manipulative harpy (who conveniently disposes of Jaime by sending him pictures of Tim "making out" with his co-star) is also unconvincing. Read the first 178 pages. But stop there.
Rating: 
Summary: Craptastic drivel, a trite cliché-laden mess
Review: Every tired cliché about Hollywood penciled in by the most effete and unintentionally awful writing; that is The Ice Sculptures.
It's not even good bad, but predictable cartoons of a few recent, and overdone conceits; closeted actor's rise to fame and aversion from scandal. The author even mentions Jackie Collins. Pity he can't even be that trashy.
Instead, brand names replace adjectives. Hackneyed back story pages precede banal and minimal dialogue scenes.
Marketing itself as SEXY! and SINFUL!, the erotic portions have all the charm of a medical exam: ("He expelled his semen"), and are thankfully brief. Craig spends an inordinate amount of space describing the most banal actions, with no compelling dialogue other than perfunctory greetings (followed by a hasty description of meetings) or whipped up sketches of major events like Emmy awards with no insight whatsoever.
Why is this actor good? Why did he become famous so quickly? Nothing is answered, because no questions are raised. This is worthless trash.
The inept plotting, if there could be a plot and not merely a sketch of one, clunks from cliché scene to another, not unlike the shallow soap opera in which the vapid protagonist actor stars.
For all his alleged show biz knowledge, and a crass attempt to sneak in his own self-absorbed homage to himself as the out-happy journalist, Craig never manages to accurately describe any aspect of filmmaking, or television, or homosexuality, other than mealy bits stolen from old Gordon Merrick pulps.
And even those are Proustian by comparison.
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. And the Ice Scupltures, like its vapid characters, should melt away to nothing.
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Summary: The Ice is Melting...But Not Fast Enough !!
Review: There are a host of axioms that apply to good writing. Among those are: (1) some measure of knowledge of the subject matter, (2) respect for your audience, (3) a literary style that has some degree of complexity, and (4) having a story to tell. Sad to say, THE ICE SCULPTURES fails on the above noted points, as well as the most of the fundamentals of writing. The characters are as shallow as a wading pool, the plot line as thin and brittle as melba toast, and the plot resolution as tawdry as a bad hair piece. SAVE YOUR MONEY, EFFORT, AND TIME !!
One can only hope that THE ICE SCULPTURES will melt away into the swill basin of mediocrity where it belongs.
Rating: 
Summary: Had me until the end
Review: This book was captivating until the end - which i just thought was a cop-out. I loved the characters, the sex scenes were amazing, the writing was breezy and fun. But the ending...
Rating:
Summary: As the stomach turns, again and again.
Review: This drag of a book is poorly written and artless, with no clue about how real people act. Chock full of insipid characters, limp sex, and deeply held homophobic pessimism - it's a dud, a failure, a flop. Am I making myself clear?
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