The winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced. The annual competition (in its 26th year) is sponsored by San Jose State University, and is a literary parody contest, “honoring the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-73),” who may be best known for his novel opening “It was a dark and stormy night…”. The goal of the contest is “to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.”
Of special interest to our genres include the winner in the Fantasy Fiction category: “‘Toads of glory, slugs of joy,’ sang Groin the dward as he trotted jovially down the path before a great dragon ate him because the author knew that this story was a train wreck after he typed the first few words.” by Alex Hall of Greeley, Colorado.
In the Science Fiction category, a winner, runner-up, and dishonorable mention were named:
Winner: “Timothy Hanson, Commander of the 43rd Space Regiment in the 52nd Battalion on board the USAOPAC (United Space Alliance Of Planets Attack Carrier) and second in command to Admiral L. R. Morris of the USAOP Space Command, awoke early for breakfast.” by Joe Schulman of Cartersville, Georgia.
Runner-Up: “Lightning flashed from the blue-black sky of this alien world and shattered the engines of the spaceship, destroying Reninger’s last chance of escaping and reminding him of the time his sister returned from New York with the tips of her hair dyed blue, except for the part about the lightning and the spaceship.” by Mark Murata of Kirkland, Washington.
Dishonorable Mention: “The dual-headed Zhiltoids from Beta Quadrant in the Crab Nebula, who lived entirely on a diet of steaming hot asphalt, thought they had died and gone to heaven upon landing in the Midtown Mall of Fresno, California on the planet Earth during the month they called ‘July’.” by Gregory Homer of Sacramento, California.
The complete list of winners, along with more information on the contest, is available here. More information on the contest is available on the contest’s main page.