I got this by e-mail a few days ago - it seems unusually appropriate here.
[NOTE: Enclosed within is the first in a series of excerpts designed
to deliver the results of the 2000 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a
contest that challenges entrants to compose bad opening sentences to
imaginary novels, and is dedicated to Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton
because he opened his novel "Paul Clifford" (1830) with the immortal
words (assuming of course words can be immortal insomuch as they were
never alive in the first place (unless enduring fame in and of itself
is sufficient to imbue a word with immortality)) "It was a dark and
stormy night"]
Overall: Winner
The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a
crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows
slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the
thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in
their pints.
Gary Dahl
Los Gatos, CA
(408) 370-9736
gdcreative@att.net
(another entry by Gary Dahl)
Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength
for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many
failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward
with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must
breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the
smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was
chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the
heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria's Secret
thong and slip into her well-worn - and infinitely more roomy -
knickers.
Overall: Runner Up
Jack Maverick, ex-federal agent, burst through the window of the drug
lord's palace with a sneer on his face and guns blazing, sending a sea
of glass into the room that would take weeks for Hilda, the maid who
came in every Tuesday and Thursday, to clean even if she worked unpaid
overtime, which she didn't since in today's world it's a seller's
market where maids who speak decent English are concerned.
Nicolas Juzda
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
nicolas.juzda@utoronto.ca
Winner: Romance
Theirs was a love that transcended time, ran roughshod over moral
dogmas, guffawed in the face of adversity, rent asunder the shackles of
social convention and took a sledgehammer to the crumbling walls of
religious doctrine: a passionate love, a tender love, a selfless love,
an undying love: not bad for two gerbils born on opposite sides of the
glass partition.
Kevin Ruston
Barnet, Hertfordshire, England
0208-441 4303
kevrust@supanet.com
Runner-Up: Romance
Raven Hall -- that gape-mouthed, gray gargoyle of County Cork -- loomed
above the misty Irish vales (the spring rains having recently abated)
as young Deidre, bound in servitude to its drooling master so her
beloved Bryan would be freed upon disembarkation at Australia's prison
colony where he was sent for theft of a twig to be used as kindling,
approached.
Mary Ann Unger
Ewing, NJ
(609) 633-6434
munger@dolsun.dol.state.nj.us
Dishonorable Mentions: Romance
His eyes bored into hers like the slowly turning bit of a 2.5
horsepower drill press set to slow speed to keep from scoring the
surface of a priceless mahogany table being repaired for an estate
auction that was not expected to bring in much, anyway.
Martin M. Conrad II
Colorado Springs, CO
(719) 531-6726
mconrad@aequarion.com
Sarah was a blue-blooded mistress of the Main Line, but she couldn't
stop Jack from prowling the back streets and alleys of her mind,
couldn't stop him from renting a cheap room in her remembrances, for he
dwelled in the seamy underside of her soul, and yet the memory of his
infidelities burned a scar on her heart like a bad tatoo.
Patrick Burns
Newton, N.J.
(973) 948-6024
TheBurnsFamily@Compuserve.com
It could be said that Martha and Isaac had chemistry, but Martha had
never been good at chemistry, and sex with Isaac had been like an
experiment wherein she had accidentally mixed ammonia and bleach,
burned her eyebrows off, lost all sense of smell for weeks, and never
saw the family cat again.
Kelly Griffith
Media, PA
(610) 627-9854
kgriffit@zoo.uvm.edu
Winner: Science Fiction
The night (like every night on Beta Forensis Epsilon (known to the
members of the Star Guard ground station as BFE) where the 30-degree
axial tilt, 12-hour rotation and ferocious radiation from Beta
Forensis' F5 perpetual thermonuclear blast churned the atmosphere like
a rookie's stomach during zero-gee training), was dark and stormy.
William D. Draper
Manassas, VA
(703) 361-4873
greenflite@home.com
Runner-Up: Science Fiction
The alien's single eye glowed on its stalk like the headlight of a
police motorcycle pursuing a speeder on a dark highway on a stormy
night, its ears protruding from its head like an old Garfield toy
beginning to fall off the suction cups sticking it to the rear
winsdhield of a battered Lincoln Towncar, and its lips, thick and
rubbery like a spandex bathing suit on an overweight retired
bodybuilder, struggled to form the words, 'I love you.'
Seth Miller and Cassandra Thomas
Plano, TX
(972) 517-4049 |
