“The Eye of Argon,” by all rights, should have languished, a forgotten or ignored piece of amateur fantasy fiction published in a fanzine half a century ago. But it didn’t. Somehow, it was detached from those ignoble beginnings, and gained an underground cult following at science fiction conventions.
And then it grew. And the rituals involved in sharing the story grew. And now it has attained near-legendary status, sort of like the favored uncle you always seek out at family gatherings, but would be embarrassed if your real-world associates knew was related to you. Well, we’re not embarrassed, though perhaps we should be….
This book contains the original story by Jim Theis, and then adds new, hilarious contributions to the mythos from Keith R.A. DeCandido, Genevieve Iseult Eldredge, Daniel M. Kimmel, Peter Prellwitz, Hildy Silverman, Ian Randal Strock, Michael A. Ventrella, and Jean Marie Ward, with Jody Lynn Nye (introduction), and Monica Marier (art).
Table of Contents:
Foreword:
The Eye of Argon and Associated Earnest Musings – Jody Lynn Nye
Introduction:
We Can All Be Grignr; or: How to Appreciate Very Bad Writing – Michael A. Ventrella
The Eye of Argon – Jim Theis (with annotations by Ian Randal Strock)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 3½
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 7½
The Further Adventures of Grignr the Barbarian:
The Return of the Eye of Argon – Hildy Silverman
The Rat’s Tail – Keith R.A. DeCandido
Grignr and the Drignr – Peter Prellwitz
Grignr in the Land of Er-Urz – Ian Randal Strock
God Quest – Genevieve Iseult Eldredge
Grignr’s Swift Sword of Vengeance – Daniel M. Kimmel
Ouanna’s Rock – Jean Marie Ward
Grignr and the Tomb of Really Bad Evil – Michael A. Ventrella
“Underneath all the absurdities lies a real story, silly but strangely compelling. It is possible to see that in the new edition by reading the various Argon pastiches that have been appended to it. One of them is the real thing, Hildy Silverman’s ‘The Return of the Eye of Argon,’ which is a perfectly good little fantasy story that replicates Theis’s innumerable errors with remarkable accuracy, but which also deftly catches the music of his imagination. Another, ‘Oanna’s Rock’ by Jean Marie Ward, is likewise a nicely plotted heroic fantasy, but unlike Hildy Silverman she was unable to make herself strew her tale with spelling errors and goofy grammatical absurdities, so it is essentially Theis played straight, somewhat of a different kettle of fish.” Robert Silverberg, Asimov’s magazine
Michael A. Ventrella 