February 10-13, 2005
Arlington Heights, IL

James P. Hogan- Author GoH
Shaenon K. Garrity - Artist GoH
John Morse - Fan GoH

RULES....JUDGING.....PRIZES.....EXAMPLES

THE RULES*
- Contest is open to all registered members of Capricon 25
- Each entry must consist of a single sentence but you may submit as many entries as you wish.
- Sentences may be of any length (though you go beyond 50 or 60 words at your peril), and entries must be "original" (as it were) and preferably unpublished (or not widely published prior to submission), or, at least, plagiarized from someplace the judges won't recognize.
- There are no set categories. That said, all entries should include a category which you yourself create. There will be a winner for "best category" as well as best sentence.
- It is preferred that entries are e-mailed to us however, if for some reason this does not work for you the following alternatives are available:

Surface mail entries should be submitted on index cards, the sentence on one side and the entrant's name, address, and phone number on the other. Submit to:

Dark and Stormy Night Contest
Capricon 25
P.O. Box 60085
Chicago, IL 60660

Email entries should be in the body of the message, NOT in an
attachment. Please submit one entry per e-mail.
Send all-e mail entries to: infocapriconorg

- The official deadline for submission via e-mail and postal mail is February 5 . After that submissions will be accepted at the convention until 9pm Saturday night, please bring them to Registration.

*we say rules, but really, if you make an especially good case for something we're always open to suggestions. So, one might say that they're more in the nature of guidelines**

**Except for the one sentence thing. That, we're firm on.

JUDGING
- Judging will happen after the first full night of no sleep, as we have determined that this contest is best undertaken in a state of sleep deprivation.
- The Judges decisions are final, and will be completely arbitrary, if not downright capricious.
- Some of us like atrocious puns (you take your chances).
- Bribery may or may not work, but feel free to attempt it. (The Judges especially like dark chocolate)

The judges are:
Tracey Callison
Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker)
Moshe Yudkowsky

PRIZES
We don't quite know what the prizes will be just yet, but the judges will choose some suitable tokens in the spirit of 'the punishment fits the crime.

EXAMPLES

Category: Classic
As his bathysphere dropped through the psychedelic technicolor layer cake that is Jupiter's crushing atmosphere, buffeted by alternating laminar flows, subjected to temperatures that would melt most normal metals, and Colonel Jamison was forced to rely solely on his lonely radar pings for any idea what was going on around him, he paused to reflect that if one went deep enough it was indeed a dark and stormy planet.

Category: Animal Husbandry
Flametta sighed as she gently stroked the nose of the contented unicorn whose head lay in her lap, reflecting that no matter what price the hides brought, she really wished next time Daddy would let her keep one, if only for a week or two.

Category: Contemporary
Long before the birth of the world we know, the land was inhabited by heroes great and bold, monsters foul, creatures most magical, who had centuries of exciting adventures, but this book isn't about them.

Cateory: Intergovernmental Cooperation
The door burst open and the Thought Police stormed in, knocking Mitch to the floor, brutally twisting his hands behind his back, but all he could think of was the books he'd taken out of the library that very day, and his stomach twisted in fear as he realized that the Thought Police would find the books and confiscate them, and that the library would dun him for new books and twenty years of fines after he finally got out of the re-education camp.

Category: The Naked City
The night settled on the lower reaches of the city like a cloak; not a fine silk cloak, or a practical wool cloak, or even one of homespun cotton, but like a cloak that had been cast off by a drunken derelict for being too shabby.

Category: The Meaning of Life
It was a bad place to die -- but there are really no good places to die, he mused, remembering his near-death experience with the tntacled Meerks of Rishmanon, his near escape from the fog marshes of the flatulent Borts (whose planet's main export was, of course, methane), and his incredibly lucky near miss of an entanglement by a particular lady on Etronomius IX (which, while not technically "near-death", would have resulted in the cessation of his life of travel and adventure, which to our hero was the same thing).

Category: Sudden Changes
Yesterday morning, I rolled out of bed, fell into the basement, and wondered where the floor had gone.

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