The Eye of Argon

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is, I think, in the best tradition of MPSIMS – it’s not really Mundane, but it is Pointless, and I Must Share It.

At last weekend’s Arisia Conference (one of the two big Boston area SF cons) I stumbled across a group of people reading “The Eye of Argon”. This is a fantasy story that was submitted to a magazine and was rescued from deserved obscurity because it is appallingly yet entertainingly BAD! It is the Plan 9 from Outer Space of the sf/fantasy slushpile. Apparently a popular game is to get together and read the story until you either make a mistake, or read something CORRECTLY (the available manuscript tries to faithfully reproduce all grammatical and spelling errors), at whic point the next person starts reading.

I mentioned it to Mrs. Cal (Pepper Mill), who said that, yes, she had heard of it, and was surprised that I hadn’t. (This is one reason I love Mrs. Cal – when I tell her about something like this she doesn’t roll her eyes at me – she just tells me she already knows. Well, we met at an sf con, after all. )

You can find it HERE: http://ftp.logica.com/~stepneys/sf/argon.htm

One of the links is a version of “The Eye of Argon” treated as an episode of MST3K. This is not to be missed! But read the story in all its naked glory first. The only way it could be better is if William Shatner were to read it on audiotape.

2

Good god!

I’d heard of the game, yes, but I’d never actually read the story. Ack!

3

Bump!

This is TOO good to let it sink unread into the vast sea of dead threads.

4

(Bump Again!)

5

I had heard of this story from my archaeology advisor(who was probably at that conference if it was in the Boston area!) in college a few years ago… hadn’t seen it’s wonderful horridness till now though. Thanks for the laugh!