There is a new Storyblogging Carnival available at Back of the Envelope, and one of the stories there is a real gem: The Terrible Day I Met Bruce Campbell (as told by the World’s Strongest Librarian).
And it’s a bit behind the times, but the Annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest recently announced the winners and dishonorable mentions here.
Some of the latter:
Detective Fiction:
The dame sauntered silently into Rocco’s office, but she didn’t need to speak; the blood-soaked gown hugging her ample curves said it all: “I am a shipping heiress whose second husband was just murdered by Albanian assassins trying to blackmail me for my rare opal collection,” or maybe, “Do you know a good dry cleaner?” (Tony Alfieri, Los Angeles, CA)
It was a quarter ’til eight in the ninth precinct when I got the call of a possible two-eleven at a nearby Seven-Eleven that turned out to be just a four-fifteen–that is until my number two from the ninth discovered the one-eight-seven under the Tenth Street Bridge, some two-bit mob soldier with a blossom of five .357’s right in the ten-ring. (Jeff Riley, Fort Worth, TX)
Science Fiction:
George scratched his head in abject puzzlement as he tried to figure out where he’d parked the rocket this time in the 100-acre parking lot of Nallmart 75B, but then he remembered that a ship-boy had taken his DNA key-but which one, the kelly toned humanoid or the atmosphere-of-Rylak-hued android; scanning the horizon, he at last turned to Babs and asked “how green was my valet”? (Leigh A. Smith, New Douglas, IL)
And the winner of the Fantasy category:
A quest is not to be undertaken lightly–or at all!–pondered Hlothgar, Thrag of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty stallion Hralgoth through the ever-darkening Thlargwood, beyond which, if he survived its horrors and if Hroglath the royal spittle reader spoke true, his destiny awaited–all this though his years numbered but fourteen. (Stuart Greenman, Seattle, WA)