RIP: The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest - no more Dark and Stormy Nights

English professor Scott E. Rice at San Jose State University has been managing the contest since 1983, named after the English novelist who was infamous for his purple prose, once beginning a novel with the famous phrase, 'It was a dark and stormy night.' The contest sought out such writing, and in its first year caught over TEN THOUSAND submissions!

Over the years, four books of excellent works were collected and published!

The professor is retiring the contest so that he can retire and enjoy some time while he still has it.

His daughter, EJ, helps with the contest and managing the web site, and is always welcoming of contributions to keep it going. Her Venmo is elizabeth_rice_12.

https://idle.slashdot.org/story/25/03/09/1740239/professor-ends-bulwer-lytton-bad-writing-contest-after-43-years


A collection of winning entries from 1996 to 2024 are available at their web site at:
https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/winners

Previous entries were lost in the sands of time, but may be found in the Wayback Machine. Some are collected in PDFs at the web site.


If you want to have some fun with very well-written bad writing, and probably a lot of clever puns, this is a good place to spend time. I have some of the four published books.

The Cecelia and Kate Novels (ebook) are on sale today for $3

The Cecelia and Kate Novels by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, are a collection of three books consisting of: Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, book 2 is The Grand Tour, or, The Purloined Coronation Regalia, and book 3 is The Mislaid Magician, or, Ten Years After.

These are Regency period books that are a lot of fun. Cecelia and Kate are cousins, and are supposed to go to The Season, but one of them gets into trouble and gets grounded, and is forced to stay at her father's in the country. The other has to attend all of those parties and teas, etc. The story is told as a series of letters between the two girls, each chapter a letter between the two authors, the form known as epistolatory fiction.

This is cool stuff!

The first book revolves around a wizard (magic is real and accepted in this England) losing his focus, a magic chocolate pot) and both girls becoming involved in it. The second has the girls married and on their honeymoon, and shenanigans ensue on The Continent when evil-doers attempt a return of the older gods. In this case, the letters become diary entries. The third book sees the disappearance of a European wizard who was looking into an oddity of the British railroads, returning to the letters format, but adding in letters from the two husbands, who are close friends beginning even before the first book when they served with the PM-to-be Wellington.

There's just the three books, though there's also a short story.

Available at major ebook outlets.

Update bricks HP printers - WITH HP TONER CARTRIDGES!

In the ultimate own-goal, a recent HP "security update" has bricked models LaserJet MFP M232-M237, preventing them from printing even with HP toner cartridges. Some people have gone out buying Brother lasers and just junking the HP gear.

Good on them! Not that it will get HP to change their terrible behavior, but at least you can hurt them in the wallet.

Now, Brother had a bit of trouble last week. News came out that they did a similar DRM move and that people had trouble using non-Brother toner in Brother laser printers, but it was a very small number of printers and never confirmed. I'm not sure what to make of that. We'll see if it's ever confirmed and I shall report on it if it happens. Brother is denying it, whereas HP revels in it.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/firmware-update-bricks-hp-printers-makes-them-unable-to-use-hp-cartridges/

Canada slaps a 25% tariff on electricity exports to the USA!

Elbows up, Canada!

New York, Michigan, and Minnesota are being hit with an export tariff on power from Canada from Ontario premier Doug Ford, in an attempt to bring the American President to the negotiating table to get him to stop this idiotic talk about tariffs and talk about making Canada the 51st state of the USA.

While I'm no fan of any Canadian politician named Ford, I think this is a great move! He is further threatening to completely stop exporting power if further threats are made against Canada. The move will generate approximately $300-400,000CA per day for Canada, which will be a nice little bonus.

Part of the Orange Dumpsterfire's justification of his moves against Canada is the "flow of fentanyl across the border", which last year, amounted to something on the order of 46 lbs. There's probably more manufactured in the USA than came across the border.

https://gizmodo.com/canada-slaps-25-tariff-on-electricity-to-americans-in-three-states-2000573857

Mass shooting at Toronto pub Friday night, no one killed, 12 injured

*sigh*

It was the pub's opening. At 2am, three masked gunmen stormed in and opened fire. Two armed with pistols, one with an assault rifle. Fortunately they seem to have been of the 'spray and pray' sort of shooters and no one was killed. Seven people were shot, one with a graze, the others injured with broken glass.

Sadly, the shooters seem to have made a clean getaway. Police are being very closed mouth about the incident, which could be taken as they're very close to nabbing the suspects and don't want them getting word and fleeing, or they have no clues as to who the shooters were or where they are. No description of the vehicle was released for people to provide potential information, I'm suspecting the latter.

Care to lay a wager whether the rifle came from south of the border?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/shooting-scarborough-pub-1.7478570