The Eye Of Argon

''The Eye of Argon'' is a 1970 heroic fantasy novella by Jim Theis (1953–2002) that narrates the adventures of Grignr, a mighty barbarian. It has been notorious within science fiction fandom since its publication, described as "one of the genre's most beloved pieces of appalling prose," the "infamous 'worst fantasy novel ever' published for fans' enjoyment," and "the apotheosis of bad writing". Science fiction conventions have long held group readings of the work in which participants are challenged to read it aloud for extended periods without laughing.

History

Writing and publication

The novella was written by Jim Theis, a St. Louis, Missouri, science fiction fan, at age 16. The work was first published in 1970 in ''OSFAN'' 10, the fanzine of the Ozark Science Fiction Association. Theis was "a malaprop genius, a McGonagall of prose with an eerie gift for choosing the wrong word and then misapplying it," according to David Langford in ''SFX''. Many misspellings also arose from the fanzine transcription's poor typing. Theis was not completely happy with the published version and continued to work on the story. In an interview published three months later, he said:

In fact, I have changed it. I went over it for an independent study for English in school. You know, like adjectives changed and places where sentences should be deleted; things of this type. Even so it is nothing to be proud of and yet it is. Because how many people have had their first story published at 16—even if it is in a fanzine or a clubzine? How many writers have written a complete story at so early an age? Even so, "Eye of Argon" isn't great. I basically don't know much about structure or composition.

Spread and notoriety

Sometime in the 1970s, science fiction author Thomas N. Scortia obtained a copy, which he mailed to horror novelist Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Yarbro wrote to Darrell Schweitzer in 2003:

Tom Scortia sent me the fanzine pages as a kind of shared amusement, since both of us tended to look for poor use of language in stories. Don Simpson and I were still married then, and one of our entertainments was reading aloud to each other. This work was such a mish-mash that we took turns reading it to each other until we could stand no more...

About two weeks after the story arrived, we had a dinner party, mainly for MWA (Mystery Writers of America) and book dealer friends, and Joe Gores got to talking about some of the really hideous language misuse he had seen in recent anthology submissions and had brought along a few of the most egregious. I mentioned I had something that put his examples in the shade, and brought out "The Eye of Argon." It was a huge hit. Locus'' reviewer">Locus_(magazine).html" ;"title="'Locus (magazine)">Locus'' reviewerTom Whitmore asked if he could make a copy of it, and I loaned it to him, and readings of it started to become a hideous entertainment. I never typed out a copy of it, but I am afraid I did start the ball rolling.

The work was copied and distributed widely around science fiction fandom, often uncredited. Readings quickly became a common activity at science fiction convention">science fiction conventions: "People sit in a circle and take turns reading from photocopies of the story. The reader's turn is over when he begins to laugh uncontrollably."

Later editions

An edition of ''The Eye of Argon'' was published in 1987 by Hypatia Press, illustrated by Lynne Adams (). The story was also reprinted in 1995, attributed to "G. Ecordian," as a nod to the story's protagonist.

Later, a version became available on the Internet, ARGON.DOC, which was manually transcribed by Don Simpson and placed online by Doug Faunt. It bears this note at the bottom:

No mere transcription can give the true flavor of the original printing of The Eye of Argon. It was mimeographed with stencils cut on an elite manual typewriter. Many letters were so faint as to be barely readable, others were overstruck, and some that were to be removed never got painted out with correction fluid. Usually, only one space separated sentences, while paragraphs were separated by a blank line and were indented ten spaces. Many words were grotesquely hyphenated. And there were illustrations — I cannot do them justice in mere words, but they were a match for the text. These are the major losses of this version (#02) of TEoA.

Otherwise, all effort has been made to retain the full and correct text, preserving even mis-spellings and dropped spaces. An excellent proofreader has checked it for errors both omitted and committed. What mismatches remain are mine.

However, the online version was found to contain errors when an original copy of the fanzine was discovered in Temple University'
Paskow Science Fiction Collection
in 2003.

Finding the lost ending

The ending of ''The Eye of Argon'' was missing from Scortia's copy and all the copies made of it. The last page of the story was on the last sheet of the fanzine, which had fallen off the staples. The online version ended with the phrase "-END OF AVAILABLE COPY-". The original copy found in 2003 was also incomplete.

The ending was considered lost until a complete copy of the fanzine was discovered by librarian Gene Bundy at th
Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library
at Eastern New Mexico University in 2005. Bundy reported the discovery to Lee Weinstein, who had found the copy in Philadelphia, and subsequently published the article "In Search of Jim Theis" in the ''New York Review of Science Fiction'' 195.

In 2006, Wildside Press published a paperback edition of the complete work.

Plot summary

; Chapter 1: The story starts with a sword fight, in the empire of Noregolia between the Ecordian barbarian Grignr and some mercenaries who are pursuing him. After killing them, Grignr resumes his journey to the Noregolian city of Gorzom in search of wenches and plunder.
; Chapter 2: Grignr arrives in Gorzom and goes to a tavern, where he picks up a local wench (with a "lithe, opaque nose"). A drunken guard challenges him over the woman; he beheads the guard, but is arrested by the man's companions and brought before the local prince Agaphim, whom he proceeds to insult. Infuriated, Agaphim condemns him to a life of forced labor in the mines. Enraged, Grignr seizes a sword and after running it through the prince's advisor, Agafnd, is about to kill Agaphim when he is knocked unconscious. This chapter contains the first of several occasions when the word '' slut'' is applied to a man, presumably as an insult.
; Chapter 3: Grignr awakens in a dark, dismal cell. He sits despondently, thinking of his homeland.
; Chapter 3½: A scene of a pagan ritual involving a group of "shamen ic preparing to sacrifice a young woman to the titular Eye of Argon: a grotesque "many fauceted scarlet emerald ic idol.
; Chapter 4: Losing track of time, Grignr sits bored and anguished in his cell. A large rat attacks him and he decapitates it. It then inspires him with a plan involving the corpse of the rat, which he dismembers.
; Chapter 5: The pagan ritual proceeds, with a priest ordering the young woman up to the altar. When she ignores him, he attempts to grope her. She vomits onto the priest, who chokes her. She then disables him with a hard kick ''between'' the testicles, causing him to ooze ichor. Enraged, the other shamans grab and molest her.
; Chapter 6: Grignr is taken from his cell by two soldiers. He takes the rat pelvis he has fashioned into a dagger and slits one soldier's throat. He then strangles the second and takes his clothes, torch, and ax. He wanders the catacombs for a time, finding a storeroom, and narrowly avoids being killed by a booby-trap. Below this room, he finds the palace mausoleum. He resets the booby-trap in case he is being pursued.
:He hears a scream apparently coming from a sarcophagus. He opens it to find the scream is coming from below. He opens a trap door to see the pagan ritual. Seeing a shaman about to sacrifice the young woman, Grignr plows into the group of shamans with the ax and takes the Eye. The young woman, Carthena, turns out to be the tavern wench. They depart.
; Chapter 7: One priest, who had been suffering an epileptic seizure during Grignr's attack, recovers. Maddened by what he sees, he draws a scimitar and follows Grignr and Carthena through the trap door in the ceiling.
; Chapter 7½: The priest strikes at Grignr but he triggers and is killed by, the reset booby-trap before his sword can connect. Carthena tells Grignr of the prince, Agaphim, who had condemned him to the mines. They encounter Agaphim and kill him, as well as his inexplicably resurrected advisor Agafnd.
:As Grignr and Carthena leave, Grignr pulls the Eye of Argon out of his pouch to admire. The jewel melts and turns into a writhing blob with a leechlike mouth. The blob attacks him and begins sucking his blood. Carthena faints. Grignr, beginning to lose consciousness, grabs a torch and thrusts it into the blob's mouth.

Traditional photocopied and Internet versions end at this point, incomplete since page 49 of the fanzine had been lost. The ending was rediscovered in 2004 and published in ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' #198, February 2005.

; The Lost Ending (Remainder of Ch. 7½): The blob explodes into a thousand pieces, leaving nothing behind except "a dark red blotch upon the face of the earth, blotching things up." Grignr and the still-unconscious Carthena ride off into the distance.

Readings

At SF conventions

For a number of years circa the 1990s ''The Eye of Argon'' was read aloud, usually as charity events, at several American science fiction conventions, such as OryCon, LosCon, and 5Con. A panel of volunteers would take turns reading passages, and the audience would bid to stop that passage or continue (for some set number of minutes, or paragraphs after each successful bid). At some of these events, some members of the audience acted out the scenes being read as mime.

As a party game

Reading ''The Eye of Argon'' aloud has been made into a game, as described by SF critic Dave Langford in '' SFX magazine'': "The challenge of death, at SF conventions, is to read ''The Eye of Argon'' aloud, straight-faced, without choking and falling over. The grandmaster challenge is to read it with a squeaky voice after inhaling helium. What fun we fans have." To encourage the game, a "Competitive Reading Edition" of the story is freely available, which is a careful copy of the original publication.

Author

James Francis "Jim" Theis (pronounced ; August 9, 1953 – March 26, 2002) wrote ''The Eye of Argon'' at age 16. It was published in a fanzine on August 21, 1970, a few days after his seventeenth birthday. He published one more fantasy story in another fanzine, ''Son of Grafan'', in 1972, and later pursued and earned a degree in journalism. His hobbies included collecting books, comics, and German swords. He also collected, traded, and sold tapes of radio programs of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s under the business name The Phantom of Radio Past. After his death at age 48, his family requested donations to the American Heart Association.

In an interview on ''Hour 25'' (the presenters of which would periodically stage a reading of ''The Eye of Argon'') in 1984, Theis stated that he was hurt that his story was being mocked and vowed never to write again. In a later interview he complained about being mocked for something he had written thirty years ago, at age sixteen. He participated in readings of the story in St. Louis at the Archon convention. A copy of the 1995 reprinting was sent to him, with no response.

Other attributed authors and distributors

Before copies of the original fanzine were rediscovered, the story's authorship was in doubt. Because the novelette was at least once re-typed and photocopied for distribution without provenance, many readers found it hard to believe the story was not a collaborative effort, satire, or both. A now-defunct site called "Wulf's 'Eye of Argon' Shrine" argued that the story "was actually well paced and plotted," and noted that "at least one sf professional today claims that the story was a cunning piece of satire passed off as real fan fiction."

David Langford reported the following, sent in by author Michael Swanwick, in ''Ansible'' #193:

I had a surprising conversation at Readercon with literary superstar Samuel R. Delany, who told me of how at an early Clarion the students and teachers had decided to see exactly how bad a story they could write if they put their minds to it. Chip elanyhimself contributed a paragraph to the round robin effort. Its title? "The Eye of Argon".

Author Stephen Goldin said that, during a convention, he met a woman who told him she had done the actual mimeographing for the ''OSFAN'' publication. Lee Weinstein reports that he had originally heard that Dorothy Fontana had distributed the photocopies. Weinstein, however, later discovered Usenet posts by Richard W. Zellich, who was involved in running the St. Louis-area convention Archon. Zellich reported in 1991 posts that Jim Theis was real and attended the convention for years.

What Weinstein calls "the smoking gun...the long missing citation" was a 1994 posting from New York fan Richard Newsome, who transcribed an interview with Theis published in ''OSFAN'' 13. The interviewer praised Theis, saying, "When they were kidding you about it, you took it so well....You showed real character." Theis replied, "I mean, it was easier than showing bad character and inviting trouble."

See also

* Amanda McKittrick Ros, novelist whose work has also been read aloud in similar competitions.
* Chuck Tingle, science fiction novelist whose work is known for its ridiculousness.
* '' Fifty Shades of Grey'', a story begun as ''Twilight'' fan fiction with a similar reputation for the low quality of its writing.
* ''My Immortal'', a 2006–07 ''Harry Potter'' fan fiction also infamous as an example of poorly written literature.

References

External links

Interview with Jim Theis
nbsp;— OSFAN No. 13, November 21, 1970

by Mary Mason

nbsp;— full text (OSFAN #7)

nbsp;— David Langford's page with links to the complete text (HTML) and scans of the original fanzine pages (PDF).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eye of Argon, The
1970 short stories
Fantasy short stories
Gemstones in fiction
American science fiction works
American novellas
Heroic fantasy
Heroic fantasy short stories