Alfred and Bertha, those crazy kids of the twenty-first century, are back for a new adventure. This time, they are having dinner with their neighbours, the Hoppenstedts – a dinner which quickly escalates into an argument.
A bit of background: Alfred and Bertha were born in response to the Not Really SF Short Story Challenge issued by writer E.P. Beaumont. At the time, there were a lot of complaints from certain quarters of the SFF sphere that literary writers were invading science fiction with their literary ways and that the virtues, values and scientific rigour of science fiction’s so-called “golden age” were being ignored. So the idea behind the challenge was to stage a counter invasion by writing a mundane short story – the sort of slice of life piece one would expect to find in literary fiction – and write it in the style of science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1940s and 1950s, complete with dated gender roles, “As you know, Bob…” dialogue and overexplanation of every mundane bit of technology.
My response to the challenge was The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg, a story about a married couple – Alfred and Bertha von Bülow – arguing at the breakfast table. And because I had so much fun chronicling Alfred and Bertha’s amazing life in the twenty-first century, I wrote more stories about them.
The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert is the latest of those stories. Once again, I borrowed the basic plot from a skit by legendary German comedian Loriot a.k.a. Vicco von Bülow. The skit in question is called Kosakenzipfel (Cossack’s Prick).
Lots of Latin, mansplaining, sciences versus humanities, totally random explanations of taxes, food – this story really has it all. So what are you waiting for? Experience the marvels of the twenty-first century today:
The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert
Bertha and Alfred, married for twenty years, enjoy a truly science fictional life in the twenty-first century. But in spite of all the technological marvels surrounding them, an argument about sharing a dessert at an upscale restaurant escalates and threatens their friendship with their neighbours, the Hoppenstedts.
This parodistic piece is a mundane short story of 6000 words or approximately 20 print pages, written in the style of science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1940s and 1950s. With bonus recipe.
More information.
Length: 6000 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Casa del Libro, Flipkart, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.
sending...