Knee-Slappers and Great Groaners

One of the humorous high points of each twelvemonth is the announcement, by the English Department at California’s San Jose State University, of which entries have won its Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. As you’ll recall, this competition was started in 1982 by Professor Scott E. Rice, and solicits the worst (i.e., funniest and most outlandish) opening sentences from never-to-be-completed books.

Fourteen clever scribblers captured honors this year, in categories ranging from Adventure and Children’s Lit & YA to Vile Puns and Purple Prose. Paul Scheeler of Buffalo, New York, triumphed in the Crime & Detective field with this smile-provoking entry:

The Big Joe Palooka murder wasn’t just another killing, another homicide, another manslaughter, another slaying, another hit, another whack, another rubbing-out, another bumping-off, another assassination, another liquidation, another extermination, another execution—but it was nothing new for Johnny Synonymous, Obsessive-Compulsive Crime Fighter.

That same category produced three Dishonorable Mentions:

“Irony,” bombasted Inspector Simons, “is when someone believes themselves more clever than anyone else in the room, but in fact they are careless, and foolish, like the murderer—MATILDA DANNER—yes, Matilda, YOU killed—wait, um ... where’s Matilda?” — Mark Meiches, Dallas, Texas

The cat purred like a Geiger counter beside the fireplace which crackled like gunfire (which reminded Detective Greenwich of his service in The Ukraine and The Latvia), this feline being the only witness to the murder of the wet nurse and, unless purring counts, he wasn't talking. — Michael McDermott, Dublin, Ireland

Detective Hill raised his service pistol and pointed it at the suspect, a master of disguise hiding in plain sight as a living statue in central park: “Freeze!” he called out. — Justin C. McCarthy, Cranston, Rhode Island

Also worth applauding is the Fantasy & Horror champ:

Upon his death, Van Helsing wrote: “This Vexes me still to-day … with no Mirror able to cast his Curs’d Reflection, how did Dracula comb his hair so perfectly every time and achieve such a clean, close shave that brought the babes in truckloads??” — Donald J. Hicks, Jr., Manchester, New Jersey

How can I overlook this Dishonorable Mention honoree in Romance?:

Brigid O’Hanion was the fairest flower of Southern womanhood, and Lt. Lance Beauregard was almost blind with lust for her, but after he slipped off her hoop skirt, unbuttoned her lacy blouse, untied her incredibly tight corset, dove beneath the rustling crinoline petticoats, and laboriously inched off her pantalets, he realized his mood had shifted and he now wondered if there was still some cold ham on the sideboard downstairs. — Randall Card, Bellingham, Washington

There’s also this gem from Historical Fiction:

To the rest of the world, General Sir Antony Alexander Agamemnon Hardcastle may have been the Scourge of the French, the Hero of the Borghorst Pass, and the fourth-worst enemy of the late Napoleon Bonaparte, but to the waitress at the Badger's Head Tavern and Grill, he was just another customer—and if he called her "cutie pie" one more time, she was going to do to him with one fork what Boney couldn't with a thousand men. — Scott Lyons, Stirling, Scotland

And of course, I must draw your attention to this year’s Grand Prize winner, submitted by Stu Duval of Auckland, New Zealand:

A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea,
ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold, thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare.

To take a gander at all of the 2021 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners and hilarious runners-up, simply click here.

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)