THE FIRST LINE OF BAD NOVELS

The 10 winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton contest, the one that asks entrants to write the first line of a bad novel (in honor of Victorian author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton who wrote the novel that began "It was a dark and stormy night.")

10. As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber he would never hear the end of it.

9. Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens.

8. With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description.

7. Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the east wall: Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.

6. Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved.

5. Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eking out a living at a local pet store.

4. Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do.

3. Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.

2. Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word fear, a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a m*o*o*n with suicidal tendencies.