Bad Prose


The annual Bulwer- Lytton contest has published its 1998 winners.
This is an annual tongue-in-cheek competition for the first paragraph
of the worst novel ever written.

Overall Winner:

The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of a piquant, anchovy chili
glaze enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before
him, coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and
caramelized onions, and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of
vintage balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil; yes, as he surveyed
the body of the slain food critic slumped on the floor of the cozy, but
nearly empty, bistro, a quick inventory of his senses told corpulent
Inspector Moreau that this was, in all likelihood, an inside job.
     --Bob Perry, Milton, MA

Winner: Western

It was a majestic weapon, a masterpiece of form and function,
hand-crafted by master gunsmiths, accurate to a hundred yards, its
bright silver body and long barrel glistening in the sunlight, the hand-
carved ivory inlay warm against the palm, and mom got a good dollar
for it after my brother was shot in the back.
     --Terry Mayer, Oshawa, Ontario

Winner: Romance

My heart skipped a beat as the bearded walrus gently nudged me in
the small of my back with one smooth, curved tusk, expelling a warm
breath of air into my upturned face, its smell of peanuts reminding me
of that precious night on Coney Island; the night when I became a
woman . . . a woman and a convict.
     --Alison M. Kelly, Vero Beach, FL

Runner-Up: Romance

Her toes tingled when she saw him-mostly the two outer toes, the little
ones, whose nails had been ripped off by a lawnmower when she was
three, and although it might have been the medicated fungal spray she
used for her athlete's foot that caused the sensuous shiver in her
digits, she thought it was probably him.
     --Brian Kinlan, New Haven, CT

Winner: Science Fiction

While the technician finished his work, Elmodine Jaatrix reflected upon
how badly the evening was going: the ionizer on her Acme 2100 E-Z
Klean dishwasher had burnt out, the window-bot had developed an
attitude, and the Instafashion clothing dispenser would only produce
athletic supporters and Calvin Klein IX synthawool peasant blouses,
and as she stared at the gibbous moon slowly rising in front of her, she
pondered morosely, "If they can build cities in the rings of Saturn, why
can't they make pants for repairmen that don't droop?"
     --Dave Lyon, Overland Park, KS

Runner-Up: Science Fiction

"You will make an excellent meal for my slavering minions,
Earthwoman," gurgled Xardon The Conqueror as he slithered across
the floor, propelled by his scaled tentacles, while his quivering eye
stalks ogled the cowering form of his forlorn captive, "because you
have a high protein content, lots of complex carbohydrates, the full B-
vitamin series, and a really nice set of ta-ta's!"
     --Ross Borden, Victoria, British Columbia

Winner: Adventure

Sir Lyonnel Ondermappe (so famous for his discoveries of lost
civilizations that when people cited him they had only to say, "Look,
it's Ondermappe!") paddled silently up the frog-clogged tributary of
the Amazon when he spied first one, then a dozen old umbrellas
stuck like warnings on the bank next to picnic baskets ritually
painted with isobars and, as a frightened frog nearly croaked
tripping a button on one umbrella opening it into a blossom of water
repellent fabric, he knew that he had found, not the 'People of the
Mist', nor the 'People of the Rainforest', but the mythical 'People of
the Partly Cloudy With a Forty Percent Chance of Rain-forest.
     --Suzanne M. Arruda, Pittsburg, KS

Winner: Detective

In the ghastly rain driven by a mad El Nino, as Dr. Ann L. View,
forensic proctologist, arrived at the crime scene in her Ford Probe, it
was not initially obvious that the victim, a thirty-something,
somebody, had met his [or her, she could not be certain in that
damnable El Nino-driven rain] demise by impalement by a foreign
object [imported, that is] that had pierced his [or her] heart after
being inserted into his [or her] body in a region below and behind
the stomach.
     --Bill Sanders, West Hartford, CT

Winner: Purple Prose

It was a stark and balmy night, the sultry breeze occasionally
interrupted by the hot wind known as the Santa Ana sweeping
across the desert floor (for it is in Palm Springs that our story is set),
whipping violently past the cholla, the ocotillo, and the Joshua tree,
moving inexorably westward where it would push the low-lying smog
of the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys toward the ocean to
hang like a brown, toxic, gaseous imitation of The Shroud of Turin
above the beach at Santa Monica.
     --Erik Wilson, San Francisco, CA

Runner-Up: Purple Prose

Her eyes were green, lichen green, the kind that grows in fish tanks
if you don't clean them for several weeks, because you keep
putting it off--until you're not even sure if you have live fish in there,
and you don't bother anymore, that shade of lichen green.
     --Sharlini Nambiar, Kuala Terengganu, MALAYSIA.

Winner: Historical Fiction

Hemlock wasn't all that bad, Socrates decided philosophically: no
aftertaste, a smooth finish, and (of course) no hangover in the
morning.
     --T. O. Carroll, San Jose, CA (408) 923-3273

Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions:

Yes, Jarvik had torn Colette's heart in two, but only after cracking
her heaving, alabaster sternum with the spreader of his infidelity,
and piercing the pericardium of her trust with his pernicious falsity,
which he then poised like the rusty, serrated Scalpel of Damocles
over the ascending branch of the aorta of her desire, threatening to
sunder her intercardial septum of hope, like so much myocardial
butter.
     --Dr. Scott C. Hartsel, Eau Claire, WI

Across the moon-swept lawn Daphne fled his baleful stare from the
Conservatory window, her silken gown flowing behind her but
catching on the sumac sprouts and rabbit berry, the rose of Sharon
and wintercreeper, the milkwort and forsythia, the furze and genista,
the tamarisk and jute, the sisal, sand myrtle and yellowroot until its
lacy tatters gloried in the soft wind and she realized she was naked
and cold near the hothouse. (from "Return To Magnolia Manor")
     --Tom Hefferon, Schenectady, New York

Cats bury their droppings with all the decorum of a state funeral, and
dogs revisit theirs with the fervour of a connoisseur, but cattle hardly
seem to commit to the whole process, wandering off with a truly
bovine indifference while the last soft plop is still echoing through
the pasture, and it was this last which inspired Angela's choice of
vocabulary when Kevin opened his mouth and let fall the words, "I
love you."
     --Penny Downing, Scarborough, Ontario



Thanks to Maurizio Mariotti