"The Eye of Argon," for those unaware, is a classic piece of fantasy writing, but not in a good way. Written in 1970 by 16-year-old Jim Theis, it is widely regarded as the worst fantasy story ever written. It's not just the absence of characterization. It's not just the turgid prose, like "escaping drops of life fluid" or "green orbs." It's not just the absurdities like "red emerald." And it's not just stunning misuse of the thesaurus in every single sentence. Do you understand what I'm trying to say here? The story is so bad, it's mythic.
Theis wrote the story as a serious effort for Osfan, a science fiction and fantasy zine for a group that he belonged to. Just about anyone who has become a capable writer has a skeleton or two like this in the cupboard, but Theis was unlucky enough that his skeleton jumped off the coat hook, walked down the hallway, opened the door and started inviting everyone in the neighborhood to come see it.
Through the ultimate samizdat experience, "The Eye of Argon" was photocopied, retyped and widely distributed at sci-fi conventions, where it is used for midnight round-robin readings. Thanks to the Internet, it has been more widely circulated than ever, and has been posted on one web site after another, and even has received its own MST3K treatment.
The idea in reading "The Eye of Argon" is to see how long you can read without bursting into laughter; I tried it myself here at home for the benefit of my wife and made it as far as the fifth paragraph.
So now it's going to be published. In some regards I sympathize with Theis. From what I've read, the fellow went on to become a journalist, and if the structure and pacing of "The Eye of Argon" is an indicator of what was to come, he probably became a decent writer in time.
But even if he never wrote again, it still would bite to have something you wrote as a 16-year-old held up and ridiculed as often as this story has been. I read that Theis only became aware of the prominence of "The Eye of Argon" a few years ago, shortly before he died, and he was a little annoyed by the treatment.
But even if he never wrote again, it still would bite to have something you wrote as a 16-year-old held up and ridiculed as often as this story has been. I read that Theis only became aware of the prominence of "The Eye of Argon" a few years ago, shortly before he died, and he was a little annoyed by the treatment.
At the same time, I can't help but wonder if his estate's going to receive any money from sales of this book. Who holds the copyright after all this time? I also wonder if there will be any illustrations included in the book. Supposedly the issue of Osfan that contained the story had illustrations that were as memorable as the prose.
The lucky bastard's getting published. I can think of a few people I want to buy copies for.
No comments:
Post a Comment