First Sentences

This year's Bulwer-Lytton contest --AKA Dark and Stormy Night Contest--
(run by the English Dept. of San Jose State University),
wherein one writes only the first line of a bad novel:
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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."
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9) "Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens."
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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."
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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."
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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."
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5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not
keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."
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4) "Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached,
but then penguins often do."
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3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese,
the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."
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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 moron with suicidal tendencies."
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AND THE WINNER IS.....
1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness,
crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers,
pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess,
hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated,
sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude
of the frog's deception, screaming madly, "YOU LIED !"