Bulwer-Lytton Awards 2018

[Mugwump]

https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/latest-winners for more 

Grand Panjandrum's
Special Award

I knew that dame was trouble as soon as I set eyes on her, see: there was a stain on her clingy dress, wine, difficult to get out (you notice these things when you've been in the business as long as I have); there was a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her high heel, cherry, that would leave a gristly pink trail following her every step (you pick up on these things when you are as experienced as I); and when she coolly asked me directions to the detective's office, I pointed her down the hall and went back to mopping the floor.

​


Bridget Parmenter, Katy, TX
swirly.png
Adventure
Winner

Eli Jacob Crowley, the famed pioneer figure who spearheaded America's westward expansion by blazing the Crowley Trail in 1838, was an awe-inspiring figure of a man, as stout as a four-century-old oak, as intellectually complex as the fronds of a Florida palm, as singularly focused as the trunk of a Giant Sequoia, though in all other respects, not like a tree at all.

John Hardi, Falls Church, VA
Dishonorable Mentions

Commander of the Bengal Lancers Lord Reginald Buckman, KCIE, was a strong, strong man, not "strong" like some onions, though he ate them often, and particularly enjoyed them sautéed in lard, a generous amount, but lightened with a bit of white wine, not too dry, alongside fresh calves kidneys, though goat would do in a pinch.

John Hardi, Falls Church, VA

Nothing looked familiar to Travis, who, recalling a favorite line from Tolkien — "Not all those who wander are lost" — reckoned the "not all" part implied that most who wander, like himself, are in fact lost, yet buzzards would pick his bones before he would think to ask for directions.

Dr. Joel Phillips, West Trenton, NJ

Dave's fear surged in his chest, like those bombs they put in ski slopes to trigger avalanches, but this one didn't explode and instead came down in a natural avalanche that covered the ski-resort parking lot and poured into the open window of Dave's car, which is why he was so scared, sitting in his snow-filled car with a live bomb in his lap.

Chris Jordan, Seattle, WA

He blended with the bleak city storefronts as people fled the cold, hard rain that sounded like a funeral dirge on an unforgiving sidewalk, seen yet unseen, someone yet no one, and like a lion stalking a weakened wildebeest from the tall grass of the Serengeti, he sprang toward a beautiful woman struggling to find purchase in her high heels and handed out another coupon for twenty percent off at Sneaker Jungle.

Mark Wisnewski, Flanders, NJ

Kevin M. Kinzer, Spokane, WA

My escape from heavily-guarded Cochon Island, a Hungarian penal colony founded by the Gabor sisters, would have to be well-planned and faultlessly executed, I thought to myself, "and I'm just not the right man for it," so I stayed and lived out my days there, because having a Gabor slap you around wasn't that bad, especially when they said "dahling" afterwards.

​
swirly.png
Children's Literature
Winner

Hi, my name is Neptune Galapagos Cooper, I'm 13, I live in the suburbs with my middle-class white family (my SUPER ANNOYING little brother, my parents, who are sooooo lame, and my dog Bailey, the only one who really gets me) and there's one thing you should know about me: I'm not like other girls.

Rachel Koch, Blackstone, MA
Dishonorable Mentions

MAs Penelope sprinted breathlessly across a field of wildflowers, over a rickety bridge, through a dense copse, and across seven more fields, trying to outrun the ogre, she wished desperately that she had a horse – a fancy, prancy one with tufts of fur by its hoofs, a shimmering mane, and a white diamond on its forehead, preferably named Stardust.

​

Aasha Sankpal, Monroe, CT

"Pooh," said Piglet inquisitively, "I don't believe the quantum interplay of dark energy and black holes allows for the anti-matter superposition of a Higgs-Boson vector that you are postulating transported you thru an n-dimensional carbon lattice and got you stuck in the hunny tree . . . just sayin'."

Tim Metz, Kokomo, IN
swirly.png
Crime/Detective
Winner

He glanced at his unsuspecting guests, his slight smile hiding his hateful mood, his calm eyes hiding his evil intentions, and his smooth skin hiding his tensed muscles, skeletal structure, and internal organs.

Dave Agans, Wilton, NH
Dishonorable Mentions

Jimmy-The-Bull lay sprawled in a puddle of his own blood, which spread out like a bright-red Rorschach test, in which Detective Williams had so far identified a butterfly, a puppy and the Eiffel tower, but was vaguely disappointed that there was nothing resembling Jimmy's trademark bull, although the coroner had seen a giraffe, which he claimed was close enough, since it was also a ruminant.

​

Arlen Feldman, Colorado Springs, CO

For rookie detective Lara Stinson, the hardest aspect of her most recent case was not discovering that the adolescent victim had been thrown from the tenth story of the apartment building by his own grandmother, but rather trying to spell "defenestration by octogenarian" in her subsequent report.
Thomas Purdy, Roseville, CA

Inspecteur Rollin of the Paris murder squad lit a cigarette as he stood over the body of la prostituée engorgée (to those readers who don't know French, a prostitute with her throat cut and, indeed, how else would one describe her -- la pute, la fille de joie, la vendeuse de sexe, la travailliste de la rue?) which lay on the Voie Georges Pompidou under the arches of le Pont Neuf on the rive droite of la Seine which flows through the most beautiful city in the world.
Ralph Cutting, Kingston Upon Thames, England


Who knew what answers the elongated, odd-shaped gray trunk would reveal, but there was no doubt that in solving the mysterious homicide at the zoo the great weight of evidence pointed to the elephant in the room.
Jay Dardenne, Baton Rouge LA

It was a routine day for Detective Maxwell, who did not yet know that instead of solving a case today, he would become one, with three lined chambers and genuine leather piping.
Talha bin Hamid, Karachi, Pakistan

The good always wins out when you observe matters from a distance, gasped Detective Inspector Fred Pickle, dangling from a meathook in a disused Balham slaughterhouse, but it didn't, really, not for him, nor yet for the guy on clean-up.
John Holmes, St. Petersburg, FL
swirly.png
Dark & Stormy
Winner

It was a dark and stormy night: the wind whistled like an old man with drugstore teeth trying to teach his grandkids to say, "She sells sea shells by the sea shore," causing the little shavers to wonder why Peepaw was suddenly talking like Daffy Duck, whether he'd just had a stroke, and if any of them was in the will.

Mark Schweizer, Tryon NC
Dishonorable Mentions

"It was either a dark or a stormy night, depending, of course, on if one was comparing globally or locally, as the midnight sun would be considered quite bright to the rest of the world, and by Alaskan standards, the negative fifty-degree wind chill would be considered balmy," thought Janet as she wrestled yet another sled dog out of the alien's tractor beam.

Peter Seakat, Rochester, NY

Sufficiently numerous airborne water droplets struck various grounded objects at appreciable velocities, illuminated by ambient light from a sub-horizon sun such that fewer photons were absorbed by the retina of our protagonist's eyes within a given interval of time than the number at which he would struggle to decide whether the amount of light he perceives should be considered "bright" or "dark"; in other words, it was a dark and stormy night.

Shea Charkowsky, Santa Clara, CA
swirly.png
Fantasy and Horror
Winner

His steel sang as Dothrak, mighty thews febrile with barely-checked power, drew Aelthmor (the blade forged in eldritch shadows by the Zdrahali adepts) and declared, "All who have sworn allegiance to the False Duke will feel my wrath!" yet he was summarily admonished to silence, for it is at the Reference Desk of the Skokie Public Library that our story takes place.
Greg Carlson, Minneapolis, MN
Dishonorable Mentions

Talila Norpiros, heir to the elven throne and commander of her people's armed forces, chose a slightly more risqué outfit that morning than she would normally wear to battle, theorizing that if she were presented as a sex symbol as well as a dynamic protagonist, the series might attract a few more male readers and finally make the New York Times bestseller list.
Bridget Parmenter, Katy, TX

Kravik the Helm-Cleaver gripped his Damarrian battle-axe and stepped into the inky blackness of the cave, wishing he had thought to bring a torch to illuminate the stalagmites or stalactites—whichever were the ones that hang down from cave-roofs to crack the cranium of a man who stands two meters tall—as he searched for Dwarf Kobolds, the vile creatures who, at less than half the barbarian's stature, never had to worry about conking their scaly heads on stal--, stalac . . . pointy ceiling rocks.
Brad Taylor, Iowa City, IA

Under a lurid dawn sun, the Usher Property was less baleful than it had been during the past evening's abode-splitting weather event, and my practiced realtor's eye – have I not mentioned my profession already? – recognized development potential once the tarn was drained and fissure remediated, perhaps to build an outlet of shopping at which consumers would dawdle, aghast at the scale of discount savings.
Brian Brus, Oklahoma City, OK

The wars between the Aarbollethi and the Deffalecci was now in its seventh haelon, and it is difficult to imagine they began when the Aarbollethian Ambassador to Deffalecci, when addressing the Deffaleccian Secretary of State, pronounced their nation's common greeting, achdazar u zynthio as ashadar y thynzio, which, in the Deffaleccian tongue is an insulting reference to a hero from their classical mythology named Ashadarythyn, who was supposed to have murdered his Vareto and lain with his Amunna.
Ralph Cutting, Kingston Upon Thames, England

Although widely despised by his own kind, Kazimir Kilcescu was a hero to a few uninhibited vampires who adopted his "baby talk and Ugg boots" method of victim selection which, when applied correctly, largely eliminated the blood-curdling screams that otherwise left them the choice between letting their swooning prey go scot-free or choking down two liters of curdled O-pos.
Drew Herman, Port Angeles, WA

The witches cackled in glee, an eye of newt emanating a very satisfying 'pop', the ear of a pixie providing a heady scent, and the chest hair from a burly princeling for some zing, as they tipped them into a dark cast iron cauldron, only for Millicent the youngest of witches to wonder whether they sold more contemporary cauldrons in Williams Sonoma and if they had a free delivery option.
Hwei Oh, North Balgowlah, Sydney, Australia