Monday, August 18, 2008

Bad beginnings

The weekend has another hour of life -- just enough time for a non-political post. You must read, or at least skim, the winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton contest, a.k.a the "It was a dark and stormy night" contest, in which the entrants attempt to compose the opening sentence to the worst possible novel.

I take the liberty of quoting a runner-up:
"Die, commie pigs!" grunted Sergeant "Rocky" Steele through his cigar stub as he machine-gunned the North Korean farm animals.
Next year, I may offer the following:
At a public reading of Paul Clifford, Lord Lytton got only as far as "...dark and stormy..." when he was interrupted by a time-traveling Josh Marshall, who angrily decried the "obvious" racism.
Poke fun at Lord Lytton if you will, but he surely did something right. He lived in the house used for Wayne Mansion in Tim Burton's original Batman movie.

3 comments:

Perry Logan said...

Hilarious openers. On the other hand, "Call me Ishmael" doesn't sound too promising.

Anonymous said...

"It was a dark and stormy KNIGHT. A man stood out in the street, a painted smile smeared on his lips, his boots were full of feet."

Twilight said...

Lots of LOLTH! Thanks.

I had to read this Western runner-up 3 times before the penny dropped:

Bryson the Plainsman seldom spoke a discouraging word but he did when he filed for divorce after discovering his dear and an interloper played.
( by Maree Lubran
Saratoga, CA)