Computer age book titles - by Fran Hill

Stories aren't what they used to be, now we're in the digital age. I thought I'd speculate on how some famous ones could have been so different if they'd been written in the age of technology.


Don ShiftKeyote - in which a middle-aged Spaniard embarks on chivalrous deeds but comes to a sticky end when he finds that chivalry isn't quite the same when it's only in upper case.

The PrintPreview and the Pauper - in which a poor boy swaps places with a royal-born white screen with very tiny writing on until it is changed to 350%.

The Great Esc - in which some prisoners of war tap the Escape key continually in order to hide the sound of tunnel-making by their colleagues.

Backspace Beauty - in which a horse tells its story about how it was sent to a cruel owner who made it learn to run only in reverse.

The Processor and the Pea - in which the innards of a computer are put to bed on a tall pile of twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds but will still not work until the pea underneath them all is removed.

Mobile Phone Dick - in which a man intends to go to sea in search of a whale but finds that, because there is no network access at the shipping yard, he cannot let anyone know he is running late, and misses the boat.

Watership PageDown - in which a group of furry bunnies, under threat of losing their home, are saved by the fact that the estate agent in charge of the land does not scroll down far enough in the document and therefore the building works never get started.

Cyber with Rosie - in which a Gloucestershire lad in very baggy trousers strolls through a field with a young girl with plaits and a gingham dress. The sun is out. They can hear cows. They discuss life at the village school, the cooking smells in his mother's kitchen, and his new Apple iMac with its 27-inch LED backlit display and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. They kiss.

Orange is Not the Only Fruit - A well-known mobile phone company brings out a new range of apple and banana shaped handsets which they market primarily in a depressing Northern town. A repressed teenager with rhetorical skills honed in the Pentecostal church abandons her ambitions to go to Oxford, leaves home under a cloud, and joins the phone company as their main Northern rep. There is a touching reconciliation with her mother after she contributes an idea for an organ music ringtone which proves surprisingly popular.

Three Men Boot Up - a trio of comic Englishman decide that as they have nothing else to do that is worthwhile, they will have a series of trivial adventures by agreeing to turn on their computers at the same pre-arranged time every day. There are hiccups along the way, mainly because one or other of them gets involved in another activity totally unrelated to the plan and goes on about it for a hell of a long time, and sometimes a large dog with a stupid name demands attention.

If you have any ideas of your own, please add them in the comments box ....

Fran Hill is a writer and teacher who lives in Warwickshire. You can find out more about her, and check out more of her humour on Fran's blog  You can also buy her first book from the blog. It's called 'Being Miss', is a story about a hapless teacher's day, and it will make you feel much better about your own frailties. Why not look at the reviews she has on Amazon?