Derek Lepoutre, Pickering, Ontario, Canada Williams, chose to heed his colleague’s wise words and “run while you still can”-a choice that ultimately left us stuck with him for a protagonist rather than the infinitely more intriguing late Dr. Steinbeck fought off the stone monstrosities that had ambushed the expedition crews deep within the Mayan pyramid, his lifelong friend, Dr. The collapse of the Taiping Rebellion and my subsequent wanderings to avoid the deadly clutches of vengeful imperial agents form the basis of this narrative, a narrative whose very existence and use of the first person pretty much ruin any sense of suspense that might have made it worth reading.Īs Dr. Cooper as he canoodled with his common-law Sasquatch wife D'un'h in their cozy lean-to deep in the sodden Cascade foothills.

When I asked our novice Safari guide Guy Pommeroy to identify what that roaring sound was he replied (and these were his last words), “It sounds to me like someone with a bad case of bronchitis I’ll check and be right back.”Īmong the more useful life lessons that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane teaches you are that money isn’t everything and that species chauvinism can really limit your opportunities for finding happiness, thought D.B. Victor Frankenstein admired his masterpiece stretched out on the lab slab it was almost human, OK, no conscience or social awareness, and not too bright, but a little plastic surgery to hide the scars and bolts, maybe a spray tan and a hairdo, and this guy could run for President! It was a dark and stormy night the rain fell in torrents-except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.Ī lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold, thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare. Best known for The Last Days of Pompeii, his novel Paul Clifford began with the famous opener that has been plagiarized repeatedly by the cartoon beagle, Snoopy. Sentenced to write a seminar paper on a minor Victorian novelist, he chose the man with the funny hyphenated name, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. The contest was the brainchild of Professor Scott Rice. What a wonderful celebration of creative purple prose.įounded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels. I look forward to the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest Winnersevery year.

Lyttony of grand prize winners