It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (The Best from the Bulwer-Lytton Contest) by Scott Rice (Editor)

"The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails-not for the first time since the journey began-pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil."

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest-named in honor of Vic-torian literary has been and renowned whist player Edward Bulwer-Lytton-is the world-famous competition that seeks to find the most atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical lousy novel. Abounding in shameless sentences, this is a hilarious-even perversely instructive-collection of skilled ineptitude.

A few heroic entries:

"Safeway wasn't open when Keegan pulled his Chevy into the lot, its valves chattering, gun-blue cracked-ring smoke sputtering from its tail pipe, to get eggs."

"I was a fifty-four-year-old male virgin but I'm all right now."

"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."