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The link currently points to the 2019 winners, the correct one is: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2022
lol Honestly i think the 2019 grand winner is the best still >2019 Grand Prize >Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.
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Or Charles Stross, or Peter Watts. A lot of modern prose starts with illusions of grandeur and name-dropping.
I challenge you to find a sentence or paragraph from either author like these. Please cite the relevant book.
Starts kinda OK but pretentiousness creeps in towards the end.
Compare that to the best SF book I know to date, Pandem:
> On the twenty-ninth of February, on the strangest of the days marked on the calendar, David Hammer, an employee of a respected city newspaper, was returning home a little later than usual.
> It was a humid, almost spring evening. At Charing Cross Station, David boarded a train that was due to drop him off in East Croydon in half an hour. There was no one in the compartment for eight at that hour, except David and a guy of about eighteen, who, having fallen on the seat, immediately closed his eyes and gave himself to the power of music flowing from the flat box of the player into the black clips of headphones.
Unfortunately I don't think it was ever translated to English :)
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And what makes it even funnier is that they all sound like they could be from a real Dan Brown novel.
Or Charles Stross, or Peter Watts. A lot of modern prose starts with illusions of grandeur and name-dropping.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I challenge you to find a sentence or paragraph from either author like these. Please cite the relevant book.
Received editorial wisdom these days is that you have at most 100 words to capture the reader's attention (and by "capture" I mean "drag it into the back of your serial killer van, sedate it, hog-tie it, then re-enact that classic scene from A Clockwork Orange -- only in prose") or they'll put the book down and never look at it again. FYI, a typical page in a paperback novel contains 300-400 words: the preceding para…
What's weird about this is how I find Jane Austen's intros catch my attention, although they often have only tangential relation to the actual characters or plot of the book. The first chapter of Persuasion is about a vain, foolish, impoverished baronet whose primary comfort when he's down is to see his own name written in the massive tome of nobility. The main character is barely mentioned until the end of the chapter. But for some reason, I've always found it strangely engaging. Why do I care about this guy? But for some reason, I do -- at least, I'm hooked long enough to get to the actually interesting characters.
Dishonorable Mention (2019): > As they sprinted together down the echoing, looping ramp of the deserted Guggenheim Museum, closely pursued by three swarthy members of the resolutely vicious Cannelloni gang, square-jawed British Royal Marine art historian/world's deadliest sniper John Savage and his voluptuous young modern art critic/Navajo linguist Samantha Silver cursed architect/interior designer/writer/educator Fr…
Dishonorable Mention (2019): > As they sprinted together down the echoing, looping ramp of the deserted Guggenheim Museum, closely pursued by three swarthy members of the resolutely vicious Cannelloni gang, square-jawed British Royal Marine art historian/world's deadliest sniper John Savage and his voluptuous young modern art critic/Navajo linguist Samantha Silver cursed architect/interior designer/writer/educator Fr…
I've not read any Hoban, but he sounds hilarious, if a taste acquired. Catch-22 levels of absurdity.
For more, see:
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I challenge you to find a sentence or paragraph from either author like these. Please cite the relevant book.
Received editorial wisdom these days is that you have at most 100 words to capture the reader's attention (and by "capture" I mean "drag it into the back of your serial killer van, sedate it, hog-tie it, then re-enact that classic scene from A Clockwork Orange -- only in prose") or they'll put the book down and never look at it again. FYI, a typical page in a paperback novel contains 300-400 words: the preceding para…
Maybe that explains two of my favourite opening lines that both include things blowing up:
"It was the day my grandmother exploded"
and
"The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
The link currently points to the 2019 winners, the correct one is: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2022
Honestly, I'd read the first one. Trashy detective fiction that's kinda self aware sounds great.
"That's it," she wailed, "I'm doomed to a life of misery and despair without my dear Harold and a decent sandwich to keep me going."
The current title of this submission ("Worst Opening Sentences of 2022") is not quite correct: the about page [1] states that "the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels". The opening sentence of (what would be) the worst novel is different to the worst opening sentence of a novel. The Children's & Young Adult Literature Winner for 2022 [2] i…
I mean, it doesn't leave much room for the rest of the novel, but maybe that's the point.
They seem bad to me, until this one: > If I wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a dystopian YA’s protagonist, I needed several things: missing or deceased parents (check), a complicated romantic life involving multiple partners and predictable behavior (check), a tough exterior that protected my sensitive inner workings (check), and finally, a life of danger, uncertainty, and constant struggle to survive (ch…