"Kirk's mind raced... the Enterprise was plummeting out of control toward the surface of Epsilon VI. As Scotty and Spock searched frantically through the manuals trying to find a way to save them all... Kirk vowed that never again would he allow a Microsoft operating system to control his ship."
This fragment from an untelevised Star Trek episode emerged yesterday as one of the winners of the world's worst writing awards. However, relief swept through British authors as they realised that none of them had done badly enough to qualify for a prize this year.
The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest honours the Victorian British novelist and master of bathos Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who gave the language the opening line "It was a dark and stormy night". This year's contest, administered by San Jose University, California, drew 25,000 entries from 17 countries including England, Scotland and Ireland.
Last year a Hertfordshire civil servant, Kevin Ruston, won the romance section with a passage beginning: " Theirs was a love that transcended time". In 1999 a London Ministry of Defence civil servant, David Chuter, suffered the infamy of winning top prize with a paragraph influenced by Catherine Cookson's novels.
This year the worst that happened was a dishonourable mention for Patrick Bomgardner, a civil servant from Brampton, near Huntingdon:
"In an Indian restaurant like any other, Forbes MacVane stared through the flickering candelight at the stranger's weatherbeaten visage; his mind raced, his palms moistened, his nostrils filled with the pungent aroma of mingling saffron and cardamom, 'What are you talking about, one million pounds; I only came in for a Balti chicken tikka and a Peshawari nan.' "
He said: "It is the crowning accolade of my writing career but rather double-edged."
The Star Trek author was Mike Rottman, of Nevada. The overall winner was Sera Kirk, of Vancouver, who was fatally influenced by the running of the bulls in Ernest Hemingway's novel Fiesta.
"A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to reflect once again - as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd - that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea."
More literary horrors: the other winners
Crime fiction
The graphic crime-scene photo that stared up at Homicide Inspector Chuck Venturi from the center of his desk was not a pretty picture, though it could have been, Chuck mused, had it only been shot in soft focus with a shutter speed of 1/125 second at f 5.6 or so.
Fantasy
When the mightily-hewn warrior-hero Glark One-Ear, fed up with paying the tribute demanded by the despotic wizard Jormed-the-Doubly-Soulless, set out to single-handedly unite the warring barbarian tribes of Verfot and lead them in bloodily overthrowing the evil mage's tyranny, he envisioned a progressive tax system based upon income brackets, yet allowing deductions for business expenses, dependents, and charitable donations.
Purple prose
The wind attacked the house with a voracious appetite, lapping hungrily at the eaves, whipping the gutter refuse into a frothy shake of leaves and dirt, while rattling the slate shingles like an orphan banging his plate for more.
Western
Out of the killer cold of the forty-below unending Arctic night into the glowing warmth of the Last Ditch Saloon, we stumbled numbly, dragging behind us the frozen dead corpse of our friend, Bartholomew, whom the hardened permafrost of the tundra resisted our burying, and, leaning poor stiff Bart against a wall, gaily called out for drinks for the house, as we were flush with prospected gold that now only needed to be split two ways.
Romance
"Alas," Vanessa sighed, "What can one do when one's relationship begins to stale in much the same way as a day-old cinnamon roll which was wrapped in wax paper rather than having been sealed in plastic, and can only be made remotely palatable for a very brief period when reheated for a few seconds in a microwave, after which it becomes even more revolting than it was in the first place?"
Vile pun
Luigi knew deep down in the pits of his four stomachs that he and his fellow bovines on the island could no longer rely on the meager rations of electricity doled out to them by Farmer Pietro to stay warm, and he sought to convince the herd that the heat generated by a few hours of singing would give them the independence they sought, saying simply, "One day mooing heats our isle; I can beat Pete's supply - get some more hay!"
Adventure
If it weren't for the knee-high sewage lapping at his dress pants and the confused terrorist spraying automatic gunfire over his head between loud, emotional outbursts in a language that sounded like someone choking on gravel, Johnson could see little reason to change his mind about the wisdom of registering at a two-star hotel.
Children's literature
"Terry the Tarantula and Wendy the Wasp were frolicking and cavorting together in the Flowery Meadow, ( as they were the best of friends in all the Enchanted Forest of Miggly-Wompsly) when, all of a sudden, and with no warning whatsoever, Wendy accidentally stabbed Terry with her stinger, making her very sad for she knew that soon her poison would paralyze her friend and after a while her eggs would hatch inside him, and then her happy wriggling larva would slowly eat him alive, but Terry tried to smile and would have told her not to be sad as this was how the Circle of Life was continued, but he was in too much pain and, as I mentioned before, paralysed."
