The Eye of Argon

Fanfiction
Title:	The Eye of Argon
Author(s):	Jim Theis
Date(s):	1970
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:
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"By the surly beard of Mrifk, Grignr kneels to no man!"

The Eye of Argon is a 1970 sword-and-sworcery story by Jim Theis, a science fiction fan who was sixteen years old.

It was printed in a fanzine (OSFAN #10, the Ozark SF Society), circulated on USENET, and distributed widely from fan-to-fan.

Self-publishing has a long, grisly history in sf fandom. One of the genre's most beloved pieces of appalling prose was tapped out on duplicator stencils by a typist who could usefully have been replaced by a infinite number of monkeys. The result has been read aloud to groans of appreciation at countless sf conventions. This is Jim Theis's legendary 1970ish fantasy epic, The Eye of Argon!

The story introduces Grignr the Barbarian, closely resembling Conan but worse-tempered, worse-spelt and harder to pronounce. His favourite oath is 'Slut!', aimed indiscriminately at men and women alike. And the Eye of Argon itself is of course a precious jewel, the eye of an idol, with some interesting plumbing attached:

"Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney, cycloptic face of the bloated diety. Gaping from its single obling socket was scintillating, many fauceted scarlet emerald ..."

Jim Theis (still with us, I believe) was a malaprop genius, a McGonagall of prose with an eerie gift for choosing the wrong word and then misapplying it.... 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.

Sample Pages

• 

  cover of OSFAN

• 

  first page

• 

  page with sample illo, artist Theis?

An Early Pass-Around Story

The story was passed around in science fiction fannish communities, often without the author's name attached to it.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro was mailed a copy and in a late 2003 email, describes reading this story aloud, and furthering its journey in fannish circles:

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] Tom 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 Most Common Version, and the Missing Ending

The version which currently circulates on the Internet was manually transcribed by Don Simpson from a mimeograph of Theis' original. Simpson comments 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 ommitted and committed. What mis-matches remain are mine.

I shall endeavor to keep a copy of the original available for viewing, so it may be appreciated in all its fullness. But as a labor of love for those whose 3rd-generation copies have now suscummed to the bitter vicissitudes of time and entropy, worn away by the ravages of countelss re-readings before entralled audiances, yet who have found that the the heady flavor of its stylistic paragraphs has seeped into their soul and still grips it with a fervid grasp, I dedicate this machine-readable version of the inimitable The Eye of Argon.

A complete copy of OSFAN #10 is at the Jack Williamson SF Library at Eastern New Mexico University. An administrator there reported that the long-missing Page 49 begins: 'With a sloshing plop the thing fell to the ground, evaporating in a thick scarlet cloud until it reatained its original size.'

What the Author Thought About Reactions to His Story

On Hour 25, a fantasy/SF talk show on listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio station KPFK in Los Angeles, the presenters would periodically stage a reading of "The Eye of Argon." In an interview on March 8, 1984, Theis stated that he was hurt that his story was being mocked:

The author was once interviewed on a Los Angeles sf show called Hour 25. The guys on that show used to read "Eye" periodically and mock mightily. The author was rather hurt that his story, which he wrote out of love (however misplaced) for the Howard genre, was so hooted at. He said he would never write anything again.

Fan Reactions and Reviews

2000

This is something of a legend in SF/F fandom. Indeed, there are contests at cons to see who can read the most without completely cracking up. (I can't read much of it...) It includes a "hero" named Grignr (!), a leading lady who is alternately slender and busty, more mouse carnage, and the longest "kick in the groin" scene ever. Bob Saget would be proud.

2001

I was once lured into an "Eye of Argon" reading, and couldn't get through half a page of reading that thing aloud without cracking up. This was a charity event, so every time a reader broke down ROFLing, s/he had to pay a dollar. I think we raised $100 for the charity before we got all the way through. Yea, verify, it's that bad.

Imagine a terrible transporter accident - not a merciful death that leaves its victims as quivering chunks of flesh (Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture), nor a romantic one that brings together two kindred spirits like Tuvok and Neelix (VOY: "Tuvix"), but one which unites the interminable pulp adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs with the exploding thesaurus of horror which was known as H. P. Lovecraft. Add a little brain damage (ok, a lot of brain damage), and you have Jim Theis, alleged author of The Eye of Argon.

I think I've rubbernecked at too many fan fiction accidents, because I enjoyed The Eye of Argon. Its lovingly-preserved typos and grammatical errors aren't up to the standards of one of our own (e.g., Analyiah), but in all other categories Jim Theis is an author Bad Fanfic! No Biscuit! could be proud of. He has a firm grasp on the pulp fiction concept of plot (plenty of swordfights, secret passages and confrontations with fat, evil princes) and characterization (none to speak of). The style boasts a superfluity of adjectives (almost all of them misused) that would make Lovecraft blush. And to top it all off, The Eye of Argon is unfinished. Perhaps the author is still waiting for fanmail before he turns it into a trilogy.

[much plot and commentary snipped]

...the story ends abruptly. Apparently there was not enough room in the mimeograph margin to fit Grignr's final fate. Did this aboriginal evil, this nefarious Eye, grow to consume the entire world? Did Carthena come to and save the day? Did Grignr have roast blob for dinner? The world will never know.

Besides the Technicolor theme, The Eye of Argon is notable for its stunning creativity in the tired old field of swordplay. Where else can you see a grown man done in by a rat's pelvis? Could Lovecraft himself have transformed a scarlet emerald into an eerie misbegotten leech-blob? Highly unusual for pulp is the feminist angle, in which Carthena (clearly a proponent of free love) strikes out against the male oppressor with sandals, torches and orange-white bile. Overall, The Eye of Argon is a refreshing splash of vinegar in this jaundiced fic-reader's eye.

Fannish Interpretations, Remixes, and Comparisons

The story has subsequently been used as part of a common science fiction convention party game and has been the subject of many turkey reads. At some conventions, the story is acted in mime. At others, the challenge is to read the story with a straight face, to include all the mistakes as written, and for extra fun, to read it in a squeaky voice after inhaling helium.

In 2005, it was the subject of a turkey read by Jane Mailander at Bascon. From the programming notes: "For the second year in a row, Jane will host a reading of "Eye of Argon" - possibly the worst sword-and-sorcery fanfic ever written. Come for the silly."

It is the subject of a filk by Lee Gold in The Bastard Children of Argo, see Eye of Aragon: the filksong (pdf), ^{Archived version} (page 54)

Jane Mailander wrote a parody of this story called "Bodiana Jones and the Eye of Argon." It was printed in Chalk and Cheese #10 (1992) and has the summary: "Bodiana Jones and the Eye of Argon" by Jane Mailander is the second of her Quanta Leap series in which Bodie and Doyle are propelled into different times and places to solve problems. In this outing, they leap into an Indiana Jones world, where Doyle ends up as a sacrifice."

One fan described Life from the Ashes, a long X-Files story, as "'The Eye of Argon' of X-Files fandom." .

In 2019, Geoff Bottone published Grïgnyr the Ecordian: A Retelling of the Eye of Argon on Kindle, using the original plotline to tell a straight-ahead sword and sorcery yarn, with improved spelling and grammar.

Further Reading

• SS > SF > The Eye of Argon > XXXXXX, ^{Archived version}
• TRANSCRIPT: The Author of "Eye of Argon" Interviewed; archive link, discussion at rec.arts.sf.fandom (July 21, 1994)
• The Eye of Argon -- Rules for a Reading, ^{Archived version} (2002)
• SS > SF > The Eye of Argon, ^{Archived version} (story transcribed, includes the "lost ending")
• About The Eye of Argon, ^{Archived version} (includes link to a PDF of the entire zine)
• A Short History of "The Eye of Argon", ^{Archived version}
• The Eye of Argon by Jim Theis, ^{Archived version} (story transcribed, includes illos)
• A Fresh Splash of Vinegar in the Eye: The Eye of Argon, ^{Archived version} a fan review (2001)
• My Sword Is Quick, parody of Howard's style written by M. M. Moamrath for REH Lone Star Fictioneer, vol. 1 no. 4, published in 1976.
• The Eye of Argon : Satireknight, ^{Archived version} (each chapter has a snark commentary)
• The Tragic Story Behind The Worst Fantasy Book Ever Written by Dominic Noble, video commentary (2020)