Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg: Alfred and Bertha's Marvellous Twenty-First Century Life, #1
    The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg: Alfred and Bertha's Marvellous Twenty-First Century Life, #1
    The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg: Alfred and Bertha's Marvellous Twenty-First Century Life, #1
    Ebook28 pages20 minutes

    The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg: Alfred and Bertha's Marvellous Twenty-First Century Life, #1

    By Cora Buhlert

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Bertha and Alfred, married for twenty years, enjoy all a truly science fictional life in the twenty-first century. But in spite of all the technological marvels surrounding them, an argument at the breakfast table about egg boiling times escalates and threatens to end their marriage.

    This parodistic piece is a mundane short story of 3500 words, written in the style of science fiction's "golden age" of the 1940s and 1950s.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPegasus Pulp Publishing
    Release dateApr 17, 2015
    ISBN9781513040073
    The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg: Alfred and Bertha's Marvellous Twenty-First Century Life, #1
    Author

    Cora Buhlert

    Cora Buhlert was born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today – after time spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently working towards her PhD. Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. When she is not writing, she works as a translator and teacher.

    Read more from Cora Buhlert

    Related to The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg

    Titles in the series (4)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Satire For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Whisky Business

      Oct 1, 2023

      Resembling a brittle and beautiful wooden flower, the Japanese chasen is a whisk that has been used to prepare delicious matcha in Japan since the 15th century. The meticulous art of chasen-making is pretty mind-blowing: each of the whisk’s bristles

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Sanctuary And Sanity-saver

      Dec 14, 2023

      LONG YEARS ago, when the world was young, I trained as a horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. My social life wasn’t much to speak of, since I lived at the other end of the day from my university friends and I was always chronically short

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Ultimate Thermette?

      Aug 8, 2022

      The Ultimate Thermette?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Pattern Recognition

      Mar 4, 2024

      Five hours’ New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm. It is that flat and spectral nonhour, awash in limbic tides, brainstem stirring fitfully, flashing inappropriate r

      3 min read

    • Article

      Black Magic

      Jul 29, 2022

      Black Magic
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letter Of The Month

      Mar 16, 2022

      Letter Of The Month
      1 min read

    • Article

      One Pot To Rule Them All

      Oct 23, 2019

      One Pot To Rule Them All
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Winds Of Winter

      Nov 16, 2022

      The Winds Of Winter
      4 min read

    • Article

      Master Your Brew

      May 1, 2019

      Keep these posh chocs in the cupboard, ready for a surprise visit from the in-laws. Prestat green tea chocolate thins. Brew one of these bags for 3 minutes in 100-degree boiling water for the perfect cup of tea. Brew Tea Co tea. These look like the

      1 min read

    • Article

      Rural Free Delivery

      Oct 6, 2017

      The cover illustration (Winter 2017) of the farm cook-stove with the water kettle on the top sending welcome steam into the kitchen and house brings back memories for those of us who used this type of heating and cooking appliance. The coffee grinder

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cold Comfort

      Oct 13, 2022

      Cold Comfort
      4 min read

    • Article

      Man Versus Machine

      May 24, 2023

      IT IS MORE KITCHEN THAN confessional, but that’s where I found myself recently, head bowed in humble contrition, mumbling my confession, pathetically seeking forgiveness and praying for guidance, crippled by the shame of an offence more against mysel

      2 min read

    • Article

      Good to SHARE

      Nov 29, 2023

      Along with its magical light trail and an artisan Christmas market, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire has reimagined the story of Sleeping Beauty as part of its seasonal celebrations. Visit the Evil Fairy’s lair – complete with toads, see a kitchen froz

      2 min read

    • Article

      Attainable Sustainables

      Mar 18, 2021

      Attainable Sustainables
      2 min read

    • Article

      Doug’s DIARY

      Oct 15, 2021

      We’ve passed the autumnal equinox. The swallows are still here, but not for much longer, gathering on the telephone wires in readiness for their epic journey and bursting into flight as we pass. In the lanes, birch and sycamore are starting to displa

      7 min read

    • Article

      One Of A Kind

      Sep 25, 2023

      If I believed in miracles, I’d call it a miracle. As I don’t believe in miracles, I’ll call it what it is: an egg, a really weird-looking egg. After months and months of waiting for the slugabed chooks – formerly the Four Hens of the Apocalypse, now

      3 min read

    • Article

      Chitchat

      Dec 3, 2018

      Chitchat
      9 min read

    • Article

      An Ode To The Stove

      Nov 11, 2019

      An Ode To The Stove
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Great Conservatories

      Jan 19, 2021

      This week it’s: TO most of us, a ‘conservatory’ is simply the uPVC structure we’ve plonked on to the backs of our houses, to give us more living space, a little more sunshine in our homes, and to enable us to enjoy the garden more while still being i

      4 min read

    • Article

      New On The Market

      Oct 20, 2020

      ■ From AG 7 January 1978 When I heard about a Japanese mushroom kit that can be grown easily in any kitchen, I must admit I was sceptical. So many ordinary mushroom kits I’ve tried just have not grown. But the new shiitake mushroom logs from Thompson

      4 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Letter

      Feb 23, 2022

      It all started with Mr Frosty back in the early ’80s. I got it as a Christmas present and I can still remember the joy I felt when I ripped open the wrapping. He was a large, plastic snowman with a fancy cylinder-like grater where his tummy should ha

      1 min read

    • Article

      Sterling Service From Stirling Engines

      Oct 7, 2021

      If there’s an underlying theme to this column, which may be doubted, then it’s the difference between the physical and the digital worlds. I can sum it up in an aphorism I’ve employed far too many times: “You can order a pizza online, but you can’t e

      3 min read

    • Article

      From Paddock To Plate

      Sep 16, 2021

      From Paddock To Plate
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg - Cora Buhlert

      Introduction

      pinstripe

      The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg is a parody, intended to poke fun at the conventions of a certain kind of science fiction story.

      This story was written in response to the Not Really SF Short Story Challenge instigated by science fiction and fantasy writer E.P. Beaumont.

      The challenge was a response to complaints by some more traditionally minded science fiction writers and fans that science fiction had been invaded by literary writing and that the virtues, values and scientific rigour of science fiction’s so-called golden age had been forgotten.

      In response, E.P. Beaumont proposed launching a counter invasion of literary fiction by science fiction. The challenge was to write an entirely mundane and realistic short story in the style of science fiction’s golden age, complete with clunky overexplanation of every single piece of technology, no matter how mundane, with which the characters interact.

      The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg is such a story. It is the story of a couple arguing at the breakfast table told as if it were a hard science fiction story of the 1950s.

      I would like to thank Wikipedia and the Internet for providing an overview of the science and technology behind many common household objects.

      I would also like to apologise to the brilliant German comedian Vicco von Bülow a.k.a. Loriot for borrowing the plot of his famous

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1