1999
San Jose State University One Washington Square San Jose, CA 95192#
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest\
1999 Results
Tuesday, July 13, 1999 Contact: Prof. Scott Rice Department of English 408/924-4447 (W) 408/227-8159 (H)#
Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the
greasy,
cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley
Ruddlethorp wearily
trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his wife, sister, brother,
and three
children were all buried, and forced open the door of his decaying
house, blissfully
unaware of the catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life.
--Dr. David Chuter, Kingston, Surrey, ENGLAND\
Dr. David Chuter, a 47-year-old government official from London,
England, is the winner of the 18th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Chuter (pronounced chew-ter), who describes himself as \"a harmless and
rather obscure bureaucrat trying to serve the public interest,\" becomes
the first non-American to win the perverse competition. Chuter says that
he read about the contest in a computer magazine, composed his entry,
then hit the \"Send\" button before he had a chance to repent. He admits
that this was the first (and presumably the last) time he ever entered a
literary competition.
Conceived to honor the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl
Bulwer-Lytton and to encourage unpublished authors who do not have the
time to actually write books, the contest challenges entrants to compose
bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Bulwer was selected as patron
of the competition because he opened his novel \"Paul Clifford\" (1830)
with the immortal words, \"It was a dark and stormy night.\"
This year\'s competition attracted thousands of entrants from all across
the United States and Canada as well as from countries like France,
Denmark, Germany, Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela,
Australia, and South Africa. The outpouring owed in part to the
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Web page (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com),
where all of this year\'s winners are posted.
In keeping with the stature and dignity of the competition, Dr. Chuter
will receive the traditional first prize award, a pittance.
Runner-Up#
He had the regal bearing of a TV weatherman, his hair twinkling like the
crystals in Ivana Trump\'s chandelier, his teeth white and snappy like
high-starch boxers, his jaw strong and sharp as a Canadian high-pressure
system, and an El Nino just itching to wreak havoc in her trailer park.\
-- Elayne Roman, W. Caldwell NJ
Winner: Romance#
The oil made their skin glisten as their bodies moved in slow
synchronous rhythm on the beach, the water gently flowing up around
their legs, birds floating in the surf accompanying their moans with
songs of pain and despair, otter and seal carcasses washing ashore
around them, and it frightened her and exhilarated her at the same time
that their love under the open sky might be discovered by a Sierra Club
cleanup volunteer.\
--Robert Chappell, Blanchardville WI
Runner-Up#
The stranger clanked on Mrs. Dimmelwitz\'s commode, and she avidly
watched him -- drinking in his pungent effluvial smell and gazing with
flushed fascination at his tender, dewy buttocks peeping over his
sagging tool belt -- until, as he cleared the clog she felt her heart
(its valves narrowed by the hard-water deposits of lovelessness) break
free of its bonds and float like fecund flotsam, drifting free of her
dreary marriage, her crying baby, and even the bloated Huggie, which had
caused the clog in the first place.\
-John Ochwat, Oklahoma City OK
Dishonorable Mentions#
Maggie had become so very attached to Butch these last few years, not so
much like a remora on the side of a shark, nor even handcuffs in the
night, but almost, but not quite, like an inoperable, yet benign, tumor,
crenulating and bifurcating in the love-struck center of his brain.\
--Vance Atkins, Seattle, WA
Drunk with rage and cheap tequila, his hazel eyes like a green pepper
floating in picante sauce, Guy Caliente entered the hotel lobby,
staggering noticeably as a three-legged Chihuahua in a noontime
catfight, while Portabella Porcina, like an overfilled burrito in her
beige satin dress, stared with unremitting astonishment and peculiar
passion at his disheveled and sudden appearance and pondered the flotsam
of their cruise ship romance, a lust lingering like a salsa stain on a
white shirt.\
--Randall Heeres, Cadillac, MI
As slowly as an over-encumbered messenger swallow carries news too ill
and woeful to present to a king, especially in a barrage of
precipitation, I commanded the muscles in my brow to wrinkle, much like
poorly installed carpet when you run really fast and stop quickly,
showing my general displeasure at the fact that my now life-long spouse
had dyed her eyebrows to match her prostitute red, three-and-a-half inch
pumps.\
--Christopher Robin Wible Jr, Providence, RI
\"chris\" chris@qwiksite.com
Winner: Science Fiction#
The remaining astronauts strung out on the long tether could only wonder
at a universe full of eerie contrasts - brilliant stars against the
velvety blackness of space, the hot flare of their comrade\'s meteoric
plunge into the atmosphere against the cool-blue ocean below, the man\'s
frenzied screams on the radio as he was roasted by the heat of re-entry
against the icy calm voice of mission control as they grilled the
astronaut on the far end of the tether, and how hilarious it had all
seemed when he first yelled \"Crack the whip!\"\
--Roger Strong, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Runner-Up#
His spaceship hurtling out of control toward the seventh moon of
Phanzigar, Commander MacPherson shouted, \"Activate the dextral and
sinistral Vekron rehydrolators and stabilize the auxiliary manifold
particulate deterrent!\" and he prayed that this time Science Officer
Info would operate the system properly and come up with a decent cup of
coffee.\
--John L. Ashman, Houston, TX
Dishonorable Mention#
Zero-G has its disadvantages as a venue for lovemaking, shuttle
commander Colonel Karen Sturgis realized testily as her twelfth attempt
to achieve a docking with her handsome co-pilot, Major Matt Savage,
failed utterly, sending her sailing into the airlock and him into the
control panel, both acutely aware that they were disappointing the
millions of Americans who had paid $29.99 to watch them on
pay-per-view.\
--Paul S. Gibbs, Sacramento CA
Winner: Purple Prose#
Rain -- violent torrents of it, rain like fetid water from a God-sized
pot of pasta strained through a sky-wide colander, rain as Noah knew it,
flaying the shuddering trees, whipping the whitecapped waters, violating
the sodden firmament, purging purity and filth alike from the land, rain
without mercy, without surcease, incontinent rain, turning to
intermittent showers overnight with partial clearing Tuesday.\
--David Hirsch, Seattle WA
Runner-Up#
As the borough\'s ace gambler (known as the King of Queens), Jack had
been very popular with women (in spades, as a matter of fact) - winning
their hearts with charm, taking them to expensive clubs, and buying them
diamonds - but once his money was gone, his house of cards collapsed,
leaving plenty of time for solitaire.\
--Bob Trapnell, Huntsville, AL
Dishonorable Mentions#
Her breasts were like ripe strawberries, but much bigger, a completely
different color, not as bumpy, and without the little green things on
top.\
--Steve Gray, Santa Monica CA
\"Omigod!\" Wendy Wunce exclaimed (to no one in particular), \"This is
like looking through a rip in the tattered and heavily soiled fabric of
Time\'s underwear!: nonetheless, there she was, at her 30th high school
reunion.\
--Terrence Carroll, San Jose, CA
Children\'s Literature#
The greedy schoolbus crept through the streets devouring clumps of
children until its belly groaned with surfeit, then lumbered back to the
schoolhouse where it obligingly regurgitated its meal onto the grounds.\
--Wendy Lawton, Hilmar, CA
Runner-Up#
\"You know, I could come to like this place much better than Kansas,
after all,\" perked Dorothy to the Wicked Witch as they oversaw the
Munchkin slave laborers refining poppies for the opium dens of the
Emerald City.\
--Vance Atkins, Seattle, WA
Winner: Adventure#
The woods held danger at every dark, haunting corner, and Indiana Jones
decided it was too risky to continue; he had already been attacked by a
mound of fire ants, had a brush with poison ivy, and faced a terrifying
encounter with the Forest Ranger\'s vicious beagle, Muffin.\
--Christine Sullivan, Melbourne, FL
Fantasy#
The dragon soared through the water, his great emerald-colored wings
outstretched and flowing rhythmically like a bird in flight, only slower
because he was in water, like a fish trying to swim through thick syrup
in the summer (because if it was winter, the syrup would crystallize and
the fish wouldn\'t be able to swim, in fact it would probably die
anyway, since it couldn\'t breathe,) but the dragon could fly through
water like a bird because he could hold his breath under water and
because dragons were probably related to birds.\
--Victoria Benson, Medford, Oregon
Winner: Vile Puns#
Forced by rising costs and lagging demand to make their leading product
out of a cheaper metal, Hoosier Love, Inc. found that a special
treatment process was needed to clean and coat their Indy 500 memento, a
tiny fake-jewel-studded replica of an Offenhauser engine on a jeweler\'s
chain, to protect it from the corrosive effect of chlorine, a process
that appeared in the ISO 9000 Manufacturer\'s Manual under the title,
\"The Dechloration of Indy Pendants.\"\
--Tom Rohde, Minneapolis, MN
The Rashers of Bacon Street, hams every one, lived and breathed
burlesque; or rather they did until that fateful night that their show
was panned and they, consequently, canned and squealing for revenge,
knew they had ceased to be vaudevillians and were about to become,
instead, avowed villains.\
--Dan Braverman, Houston, TX
Winner: \"Dark & Stormy Night\" Category#
When the Independent Counsel emerged each night from the adjourned
closed-door proceedings, reporters assessed how zealously he was
currently prosecuting from his facial expression, which on one night
might be that familiar affably light smile, while on another night it
could be a menacingly dark scowl; and so, as our story begins, they
surmised he was playing hardball, for it was a dark-Ken Starr-mien
night.\
--Ronald Snow, Huntsville, AL
Runner-Up#
\"Just look, ya bloomin\' idiot,\" Eleanor Rugglesby-Bobsyeruncle, the
world-famous cockney art collector, screamed at her assistant, Ivan
Ivanovich, illegitimate son of the Secret Czar, Ivanovichi, \"ya packed
me priceless Don Quixote paintin\' in with a sack of bloody Spam, it was
the darn cans tore me knight!\"\
--Allan D. Burrows, Mississauga, Ontario, CANADA
Dishonorable Mention#
Always confrontation, Bobby, the hotheaded Indiana basketball coach,
logged on to an Internet chat room where \"The Wizard of Oz\" devotees
were discussing the multi-layered symbolism of the Scarecrow, and
infuriated everyone by tersely posting, \"It was a dork in straw--B.
Knight.\"
--Ernie Santilli, Drexel Hill, PA
Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions:#
So far this year, Cary Yamanaka\'s skill in karate had netted him three
trophies--two bowling, one golf.\
--Briant Westley, St. Paul, MN
It\'s 6:15, she thought, and the newspaper should be here by now, then she opened her door and realized with disgust that the paper boy was still in her bedroom.#
He will tell you the story of his miserable and tormented life, but
first he has to do the dishes.\
--Krystle Dominguez, Evergreen, CO
No one knew the troubles Alicia had experienced, but that was because
they\'d learned to tune out her whining.
At first Lisa felt terribly confused but now she just wasn\'t sure.\
--Debra Allen, Wichita Falls, TX
Despite the toughness amply proved during his years in Sing Sing, Vito
Vermicelli lacked the gravitas to be a Mafia don -- behind his back he
was called \"the Godfeather.\"\
--Michael J. Saxton, Davis, CA
Long after the well-known TV show was off the air, Mr. Ed spent many a
sunset year hauling Farmer Thomas, Miz Thomas, the eight healthily
apple-cheeked little Thomases and countless bushels of the finest Thomas
tomatoes to market each week; for the famous horse, this was a bit of a
comedown, but as for Thomas, he had hitched his wagon to a star.\
--Laura Kolb, Riner, VA
He was a biologist in the extreme, having conducted extensive and varied
studies on pond life, pachyderm nasal passages, and footgear for swamp
research, which resulted in the acclaimed publication of his exciting
memoirs, \"Notes on Newts, Sorts of Snoots, and Boats as Boots.\"\
--Elise Campbell, Monroe, CT
Not ever, not once, did Sister Mary Constance, upon leaving the convent
for her fortnightly trip to the grocery, expect to find nestled firmly
in the bottom of her purl-knit tote, a small plastic package containing
a money-clip bent wide with hundreds, a ticket to Aconcagua, and a
little note with the words, \"Wish you were here,\" written hastily in
crayon.\
--David Sarno, New Haven, CT
Eschewing the normal pre-performance butterflies in stomach, Hector
instead was experiencing the dreaded, but nearly unknown malady known as
\"moths in the mouth,\" as he spit out what appeared to be chewed-up
wings and that fuzzy, obnoxious stuff that is left when you rub a
moth\'s wing too hard between your fingers.\
--Larry Sherman, Fremont, CA
Night was a mere threat on the quivering lip of the sky and the golden
tongue of the sun still licked the recesses of the bridle path, when
suddenly, an unnatural shriek emanated from the dark throat of the
forest, causing stiff fingers of fear to march firmly down the spine of
the motionless maiden.\
--Annette O\'Neill, Pacifica CA
George stared intently across the table which supported the golden-brown
fresh-baked cornbread with butter and sizzling cholesterol-laden bacon
which could finish blocking his previously-hardened arteries at any
time, into Margerie\'s clear-blue eyes and realized that she knew what
he knew, and she knew that he knew what she knew, and he must practice
carpe diem before angina seized the day.\
--Judy Hill, Modesto, CA
The incessant pulse of the \"12:00, 12:00, 12:00, 12:00\" on Nick
Popadopoulus\'s (of the Athens, Tennessee, Popadopoulus\'s) VCR reminded
him of his very existence and the inscrutability of plurals such as
hippopotami, thesauri, and croci, causing him to exclaim, \"We are
Popadopouli!\"\
--Cynde Fetherston, Victoria, B.C.Canada
It wasn\'t the best of times; it wasn\'t the worst of times; it was the
times you\'d get if you arranged all possible times (including even
fictional times in which the nights were usually dark and stormy) in
order from worst to best on the real number line from 0.0 inclusive to
1.0 exclusive and then used a really good uniform random number
generator to pick a value in that range thus choosing the corresponding
times -- that\'s the times it was.\
(first line from A Tale of Two Statisticians by Dale \"What the
Dickens?!\" Dellutri)\
--Dale Dellutri, Libertyville, IL
E-mail: ddellutr@enteract.com or ddellutr@mcs.net
She wallowed in splendor, her wondrous white-wide wholeness frolicking
with the foam; as she smiled, a salt-bleached booted bone punctuated
like a toothpick the purity of her pearlescent dentis; and as her buxom
flukes saluted the sea, she winked her wave-washed eye and blubbered,
\"Call me, Ishmael.\"\
--Virginia H. Vick, Abilene, Texas
Miss Texas, Mary Sue Carol Langley, fluffed her bouffant blond hair and
crammed her ample bosoms into the two-sizes-too-small bikini top,
confident that her dramatic portrayal of Lady Macbeth in the talent
competition and her passionate stand on nuclear disarmament would place
her in the top five pageant finalists; but she couldn\'t shake the
feeling that she had missed something when the judge from Arkansas asked
her surreptitiously whether she could play on the harmonica, only to
learn later to her chagrin that what he had actually asked was whether
she would play around . . . like Monica.\
--Patricia A. Teckelt, New Castle, PA
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