Dark and Stormy Rides Again: The Best (?) from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (Bulwer-Lytton Contest) (Paperback)

~ Scott Rice (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, named in honor of the Victorian literary has-been Edward Bulwer-Lytton, is the world-famous competition that seeks to find the most atrocious opening senticento a hypothetical lousy novel. This collection of choice entries proves that there are still committed writers out there plumbing their inner souls for truly bad writing. Size A. Radio giveaways.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140254900
• ISBN-13: 978-0140254907
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #886,044 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most recent of the Bulwer-Lytton collections;, March 19, 2001

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the fifth of, to date, five collections of entries from the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. This is a contest, named after Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel, "Paul Clifford", opened with the instant cliche, "It was a dark and stormy night...". The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels, generally by using impossibly complex and tangled syntax combined with vermillion-purple prose, guaranteeing that no noun is without more than its share of excessively flamboyant adjectives, no verb without more than its share of ridiculously flamboyant adverbs, and if possible including an incomprehensible or mixed (or incomprehensibly mixed) metaphor.

If you enjoy the language enough to appreciate attempts to pillory those who abuse it, and have a sense of humor such that you find satire to be an appropriate form of pillorying, you will enjoy this book (and any of the others in the series, "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night", "Son Of It Was A Dark And Stormy Night", "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night: The Final Conflict", and "Bride Of Dark And Stormy"). I found this one to be on a par with "Final Conflict", which is to say, better than the original, but not quite as good as "Son Of...". (I've yet to track down a copy of "Bride Of...", so I can't compare this one to that one.)