Alice and Alicia (Russian: Алиса и Алисия) is a 2003 novella by Kir Bulychev. It's notable for being his very last Alice, Girl from the Future work, published in the year of his death.
Alice and Pashka go to Sumatra to do field research for their newest biology project: the conservation of pearl moths, a nearly extinct butterfly species. However, in the forest, they stumble upon a portal to a parallel world, where they find their own counterparts, very different from themselves but still recognizable, and Pashka's older counterpart Pavel orders Alice to use the portal and find a specimen of the pearl moth, which is going to become his present for Alice's counterpart Alicia.
Tropes featured in the novella:
- Bizarro Universe: Two of them.
- In one of them, the political system is so different that Alicia is the Lady of Singapore, Ruler of Free Sumatra and Hereditary President of Jakarta. And unlike Alice whose titles are mostly honorary, Alicia really has to do the ruling. Pavel, meanwhile, is a freelance painter (the Pashka familiar to the readers has never showed any particular love for arts). And both of them are way more villainous (see Evil Counterpart below).
- In another, the pearl moths, nearly extinct in Alice's world and extinct in Alicia's world, are abundant to the point of being invasive, and Aleina Selezyonkina is doing research on how to decrease their numbers.
- Childhood Friend Romance: What's just Ship Tease between Alice and Pashka is a fact when it comes to their older counterparts. Pavel openly confesses his love for Alicia, she, however, is more vague on the subject.
- Contrived Coincidence: When Alice and Pashka go back home in the end, by a pure coincidence, they end up in their own world at once. Justified, since having them endlessly drag through parallel worlds with little hope to find their own would have made the novella a lot darker, and Alicia's whims would have eventually seemed a picnic.
- Engagement Challenge: Alicia will only marry someone who gives her a pearl moth. She goes back on her word, though, when Pavel presents her with one.
- Evil Counterpart: The tyrannical Alicia and the blackmailing Pavel are decidedly this to Alice and Pashka. After learning about them, Alice gets frightened that there might be some world where her counterpart is a thief or a murderess.
- In Spite of a Nail: Both Pashka and Pavel got a parrot for their sixth birthday, and both pulled out half of their parrots' tail feathers to make arrows and play Robin Hood.
- Love Makes You Evil: Pavel is that in spades. He is ready to blackmail Alice with his own counterpart's life to get a gift for Alicia.
- Statuesque Stunner: Alicia is tall and beautiful (which is one of her few similarities to Alice, who is tall and gets described as pretty several times over the franchise).
- Ungrateful Bastard: After all the fuss everyone went through to get the pearl moths, Alicia responds rather flatly to receiving them and doesn't even bother to thank anyone.
