What’s your favourite burger restaurant? For the last sixteen years, MAX Burgers AB has been appointed as the most liked hamburger restaurant in Sweden…every year for sixteen years, people! That’s something, isn’t it?
Now you’re wondering why the hell is she talking about burgers? And yeah, I admit it might seem a little strange, but I wanted you to know that here in Sweden we have this hamburger chain – and there are actually four restaurants in Norway and two in Denmark too – that’s really popular among Swedes, and it’s called MAX.
So it only seemed natural that if I were to open a restaurant in space, at say the Luna Terminal – approximately a light year’s distance from Earth – I would, of course, have to tell all the aliens that it was a human restaurant, but I’d also want them to know that I had great burgers. And here, the name MAX is associated with quality, at least when we’re talking burgers.
And if I were to open a restaurant in space, I’d need someone to run it for me, because there is no way I’d ever set foot on a spaceship. And that’s how the main character of It Doesn’t Translate was born.
Max’s Human Hamburger Bar has the best burgers in space…or at least in a light year’s distance, Max says so himself.
Max Welch grabbed onto the counter as the sound of metal soles clinking against the titanium walkway on the arcades of The Luna Terminal reached him. They shouldn’t be here yet. It had only been two days since the last time.
With a deep breath, he forced himself to relax his shoulders. When opening the Hamburger bar, Max had figured they’d be kind to him since he was the only restaurant for at least a light year—days’ worth of travelling in the fastest high-speed ships—but of course, the fucking pirates didn’t care.
Maybe they’d only come here to fuel up… Yeah, right.
Maybe they’d come to the floating city to do some grocery shopping. Pirates probably needed to stock up on necessities too, right? They couldn’t steal everything they needed.
He held on to his hope as he glanced over to where Quam sat and sipped on his coffee. Max was proud of his coffee; not many were able to get it on their menu and Max had managed to land a deal with one of the top brands. It was the real thing, not the bland laboratory-grown kind you could pick up at any space colony.
When the hollers of men jostling and laughing came close enough to make the one customer who had been enjoying a cup hurry out of his—her?—seat, Quam sighed and put down the tablet. “They’re early.”
Max swallowed and gave him a terse nod. He hated when Bair and his crew came, but he’d be damned if he was to give them the satisfaction of showing it.
It Doesn’t Translate is a Tattooed Corpse Story, so in other words, it’s a stand-alone story where at some point a body will show up, and it’s the same body you’ll find in any of the other Tattooed Corpse Stories.
Release date August 31st, but you’ll find the pre-order links here:
books2read.com/ItDoesntTranslate
* By clicking the Books2Read link you’ll be taken to an external page. Links to Smashwords, Kobo U.S and Amazon contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’m a bit out of practice, it was such a long time ago I had a release day – not since Worth His Salt in January. But, now we’re here, and it’s time to let Once Around Seven out into the world.
Ofelia Grand 