Ice is the magnum opus of British writer Anna Kavan, who in her lifetime was compared to Virginia Woolf and called Kafka's sister. Critics consider Kavan the founder of the slipstream genre—literature of the imaginative imagination, where cause and effect hang by a thread, and heightened emotions are incomparably more important than logic. In her novels, seemingly realistic depictions suddenly ripple, and unexpected images and scenes emerge from the depths of the subconscious.