Zubby Newsletter #82: The Worst Fantasy Novel Ever?

I’ve been posting on social media about rereading the original Conan stories and, with an eye on purple prose, a well-meaning fan pointed me toward an infamous sword & sorcery story called The Eye of Argon.

The Eye of Argon is a sword & sorcery novella written in 1970 about a barbarian named Grignr, clearly inspired by Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, but it’s notorious for how poorly put together it is. In an age well before the internet, this thing went “viral”, was copied and shared amongst professional authors and eventually fandom at large. It has been called the “worst fantasy novel ever” and, at quite a few science fiction conventions of the era, there would be meet-ups where people would attempt to read The Eye of Argon aloud without cracking up. Right now, if you search YouTube for “The Eye of Argon” there are hundreds of videos with dramatizations, analysis, or group readings.

I’d heard passing mention of it before, but didn’t know any specifics and had never actually read the damn thing. It’s short and readily available online, so I finally checked it out.

As you’d expect, it’s bad. The story has spelling mistakes, grammatical problems, plot issues, and misuses words in spots that leave some sentences adrift in a sea of confusion. It leans into painfully overworn genre tropes and the pacing is terrible.

And yet…

…And yet, Jim Theis was only 16 years-old when he wrote this 11,000+ word story on a typewriter and submitted it to the Ozark Science Fiction Association’s fanzine. I sure as hell didn’t write stories that long at his age, and didn’t have nearly enough confidence to even try submitting work for publication. Maybe it was blind hubris on his part, but at least he made something, finished it, and could learn from it.

In this case, unfortunately, what he learned was that a group of successful authors and fervent fans were eager to endlessly mock the hell out of him for his literary shortcomings and ensured that he would never improve or write fiction again. Even worse, multiple small press publishers reprinted the story and sold it without ever paying him a dime. Even now, 22 years after his death, people are still making money on Jim Theis’ work, regardless of its quality.

What’s odd to me is that when I read The Eye of Argon I can see a writer struggling to understand the form and function of pulpy prose. He’s misfiring all over the place but, rather than just copying sentences word for word as a crutch, he keeps trying to grab bits of poetic thunder, make it his own, and put it on the page. He fails but, by God, he’s trying.

Yes, The Eye of Argon is bad, but I’m genuinely surprised that this particular badness took hold so intensely in the mind of fandom. I’ve read worse writing from some of my college students submitted for grading, and also much worse from obsessive fan fiction writers, hopeful game designers, and cocky first-time comic creators…and all those people had access to spellcheck and a ridiculous amount of online How-To resources that would have blown young Jim Theis’ mind.

Having all this knowledge at our fingertips hasn’t solved the Dunning-Kruger effect. If anything, non-stop internet access and the ability to ‘publish’ our words and ideas in an instant has created an endless factory of Argons, an ever-flowing torrent of naive stories and hurtful criticism. Even worse, the cringe-worthy creative output you put online when you were 16 now gets to sit dormant like a landmine until it’s ready to blow up in your face thanks to deep internet archives and the virality of social media.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve mocked terrible writing and had my mind vaporized by art portfolios so bad it was hard to believe they were sincerely trying to qualify for an art program or get a job as a professional. I snark about shitty movies and TV shows all the time and shake my head about the middling to poor quality of at least half the comics being professionally published each week. I understand the cathartic desire to filter and judge material that feels utterly incompetent, but watching nerds giddily eviscerate a hopeful teenage writer in the public square for decades is more sad than funny.

I hope the first story you ever wrote stays locked away in a drawer, so you never have to face the burning truth of its inadequacy.

---

Back to the Cimmerian Source, Part 4

As I mentioned above, I’m rereading all the original Robert E. Howard Conan prose stories and jot down a few thoughts about each one during September. I don’t want to overwhelm this newsletter with text, so if you want to read what I think of more of the original Cimmerian stories, click on through to the posts linked below:

14) Beyond the Black River
15) Shadows In Zamboula

I’m currently in the midst of reading The Hour of the Dragon, the only full-length Conan novel Howard ever wrote, and it’s 5-6 times as long as the other short stories, so my rundown on that is taking longer, especially while juggling writing deadlines.

---

Current + Upcoming Releases

• Conan: Battle of the Black Stone #1 (of 4) – released September 4th.

• D&D Young Adventurer’s Collection Box Set 2 – released September 24th.

• Conan the Barbarian #15 – released September 25th.

• Conan: Battle of the Black Stone #2 (of 4) – releases October 2nd.

• Conan the Barbarian #16 – releases October 30th.

• Savage Sword of Conan #5 – releases October 30th.

• Conan: Battle of the Black Stone #3 (of 4) – releases November 6th.

• Conan the Barbarian Vol. 3: The Age Unconquered TPB – releases Nov 19th.

• Savage Sword of Conan Vol. 1 – releases November 19th.

• Conan the Barbarian #17 – releases November 27th.

• Conan: Battle of the Black Stone #4 (of 4) – released December 4th.

---

Upcoming Appearances

Since I’m traveling through the UK in late October/early November, I’m adding some comic shop signings to my schedule. First out of the gate is a signing in Nottingham, at Forbidden Planet International.

Oct 15, 2024 Kowabunga Comics Oconomowoc, WI, USA

Oct 17-20, 2024 Gamehole Con Madison, WI, USA

Oct 25-27, 2024 MCM Expo: London London, England, UK

Oct 29, 2024 Forbidden Planet International Nottingham, England, UK

Nov 4-8, 2024 D&D In a Castle Newcastle, UK

---

Links and Other Things

• The BBC has placed their entire Sound Effects Library online. It’s in-depth, searchable, downloadable and free for non-commercial use, including education.

• Jeff Shanks, Robert E. Howard scholar extraordinaire, chatted with the Sword & Sorcery Book Club about all things Conan, pulp storytelling, making his first comic, research, and more.

• My friend Vee Mus’e is part of a new start-up tabletop roleplaying game company called Broken Door Entertainment and they’ve just launched their first crowdfunding campaign for a superhero game called Paragons.

• Luke Gygax has a new crowdfunding campaign for an old school TTRPG adventure called Wrath of the Sea Lich.

Jim