The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State University by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last Days of Pompeii." Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse, beginning "It was a dark and stormy night...." he is borrowing from Lord Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford," written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad: "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." The contest is to write the worst opening line to a novel that hasn't yet been published. Literally tens of thousands of entries are submitted and judged in various categories, including worst western novel opening, worst science fiction entry, worst romance novel, and worst overall. These have been collected by Professor Rice and published by Penguin books as "It was a Dark and Stormy Night," "Son of 'It was a Dark and Stormy Night'," and "Bride of Dark and Stormy." These are unrelentingly funny books, and I recommend them to you whole-heartedly. Herewith are some of the winners over the past few years: "Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an over- dose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center." -- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. 1987 Winner: "The notes blatted skyward as the rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim, 'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh. 1986 Winner: "The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know." 1985 Winner: "The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably---the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career." 1985 Grand Panjandrum's Special Award 1985: "Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a bender this time---he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.'" 1984 Winner: "The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal!'" Grand Panjandrum's Special Award 1984: "Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam in 1959." 1983 Winner: "The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails---not for the first time since the journey begain---pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil." Other randomly selected entries: "In these uncertain times, one must think of others' viewpoints, and always remember that a crowded elevator smells different to a midget." "The surface of the strange, forbidden planet was roughly textured and green, much like cottage cheese gets way after the date on the lid says it is all right to buy it." "In today's lesson, boys and girls, (from our super-secret book of things we don't always tell our mommies and daddies), we are going to learn about all the wonderful fun things you can make with a combination of feather dusters, English peas, and your next-dorr neighbor's kitty cat." "We'd made it through yet another nuclear winter and the lawn had just trapped and eaten its first robin." "'Cha, cha, cha!' I whispered merrily in Mary Ellen's ear, as I escorted her stiff and lifeless body around the dance floor, proud of the envy I aroused in the fellows who had always dreamed of being this close to the once vibrant cheerleader, but more than a little ashamed of the means I had to use to get this date." "Reginald was a little surprised at Lady Gwendolyn's exuberance on their wedding night, but not nearly as surprised as he was when he discovered that the two white bands he had mistaken for sexy stocking-garters encircling Lady Gwendolyn's delicate thighs were, in fact, a pair of Hertz Flea and Tick Collars." Bulwer-Lytton 94 (from the San Jose Mercury News, 5/18/94, pgs. 1B & 5B) Grand Winner, 1994 Bulwer-Lytton (bad) Writing Contest "As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds, Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless tyrant that had mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information highway." Larry Brill, Austin, Texas Winner, Adventure category "Fierce, icy winds mercilessly whipped the naked trees into splinters and sent birds wheeling into the horizon as Nick Savage mushed his heavy sled on through the blinding whiteness and thought wearily, 'Next time I'm hooking up the dogs'." Leann Roberts, Iron Station, N.C. Winner, Vile pun category "The ex-weightlifter/director started the rehearsals by telling us, 'Okay, ve gonna be baroque composers in dis one; you be Telemann, you be Vivaldi, and I'll be Bach.'" Richard Patching, Alberta, Canada Miscellaneous dishonorable mentions "Yeah, they called him Rocky Stagecoach, 'cause that's where he was born...on the bumpy trail between Conception and Contusion." Rix Quinn, Fort Worth, Texas "Remember this, foolish mortals, when ye stare headlong into the mind-paralyzing void, the inky black nothingness of existence, the hellish yawning maw of the abyss -- it's pretty damn dark, so give it a few minutes for your eyes to adjust." Frank M. Carrano, Branford, Conn. "We had been married long enough that Fifi's burning gaze and flaring nostrils told me _exactly_ what she wanted, so I hurriedly peeled off her tight satin dress, dispatched her lacy French brassiere with a flick of the wrist, her garter belt became a 'ringer' on the furthest bedpost, and as I sent her imported silk stockings arcing gracefully into the laundry hamper, I dropped to my knees and promised never, _never_ to go into town wearing her clothes again." William "Buddy" Ocheltree, Georgia (last year's grand prize winner)