THE EYE OF ARGON
by Jim Theis
I decided I couldn’t call myself a real critic until I had read through The Eye of Argon, which is consistently rated as the worst fantasy story ever written. That’s a tall order, considering the existence of certain other fantasy series. Anyways, without further ado, here it is:
The weather beaten trail wound ahead into the dust racked
climes of the baren land which dominates large portions of the
Norgolian empire.
Well, isn’t this just a promising start? The description is already awful, and that was already two adjectives in the first sentence. ‘Barren’ is misspelled.
Age worn hoof prints smothered by the sifting
sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of
earth.
The hoof prints shone, if that makes any sense to you.
The tireless sun cast its parching rays of incandescense
from overhead, half way through its daily revolution.
I suppose the sun is tireless, it never seems to complain (I know I would). I suppose the sun might be incandescent (it’s also ‘incandescence’ not ‘incandescense’) if the light is actually from heat. Eh, physics. Also, CP uses this word five times…
Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily
accomplishments of their dismal lives.
Please leave the small rodents alone. They have enough trouble without you defaming them.
Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdonsome cargoes of their struggling overseers.
What, the dusts were struggling over the cargoes that belonged to their overseers? ‘Burdensome’ misspelled.
“Prepare to embrace your creators in the stygian haunts of
hell, barbarian”, gasped the first soldier.
I’m impressed, it’s really hard to speak while gasping, to say nothing of a sentence that long. Stygian should be capitalized as it is a proper noun.
“Only after you have kissed the fleeting stead of death,
wretch!” returned Grignr.
So. This could be an allusion to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and specifically Death… but would you really be kissing his horse? Also, he ‘returned’, how sassy.
A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive barbarians hide enameled shield as his rippling right arm thrust forth, sending a steel shod blade to the hilt into the soldiers vital organs. The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.
Even without the grammatical errors present, it is really hard to figure out what is going on.
Rivet – Verb – [-eting, -eted] – 1. to join by riveting
I don’t think ‘riveted’ means quite what he thinks it does… he probably meant ‘ricocheted’?
The enthused barbarian swilveled about, his shock of fiery red hair tossing robustly in the humid air currents as he faced the attack of the defeated soldier’s fellow in arms.
‘Swiveled’ is misspelled. Besides that, I’m sick of hearing hair described as shocks. Also, that hair is really moving around there—or would be, if robustly were at all the word he was thinking of.
“Damn you, barbarian” Shrieked the soldier as he observed his comrade in death.
‘Observed’ sounds like the wrong word here—might just be the connotations I have though.
A gleaming scimitar smote
Smote, also seen in Eragon: “Then the red fire smote her and she collapsed”.
a heavy blow against the renegade’s spiked helmet, bringing a heavy cloud over the Ecordian’s misting brain. Shaking off the effects of the pounding blow to his head, Grignr brought down his scarlet streaked edge against the soldier’s crudely forged hauberk, clanging harmlessly to the left side of his opponent. The soldier’s stead whinnied as he directed the horse back from the driving blade of the barbarian. Grignr leashed his mount forward as the hoarsely piercing battle cry of his wilderness bred race resounded from his grinding lungs. A twirling blade bounced harmlessly from the mighty thief’s buckler as his rolling right arm cleft upward, sending a foot of blinding steel ripping through the Simarian’s exposed gullet. A gasping gurgle from the soldier’s writhing mouth as he tumbled to the golden sand at his feet, and wormed agonizingly in his death bed.
Sigh, it’s really hard to comment intelligently about something this bad. One thing though, bucklers are made of wood, thus a sword would not bounce off.
Grignr’s emerald green orbs glared lustfully at the
Woah there! No need to get erotic.
wallowing soldier struggling before his chestnut swirled mount. His scowling voice reverberated over the dying form in a tone of mocking mirth. “You city bred dogs should learn not to antagonize your better.” Reining his weary mount ahead, grignr resumed his journey to the Noregolian city of Gorzam, hoping to discover wine, women, and adventure to boil the wild blood coarsing through his savage veins.
‘Coursing’ spelled incorrectly. This makes five.
One thing I like, this guy’s motivations are all really clearly laid out.
The trek to Gorzom was forced upon Grignr when the soldiers
of Crin were leashed upon him by a faithless concubine he had
wooed.
You mean ‘unleashed’, maybe? Otherwise I’ve got this amusing image of Grignr with walking a bunch of soldiers on a leash.
His scandalous activities throughout the Simarian city had unleashed throngs of havoc and uproar among it’s refined patricians, leading them to tack a heavy reward over his head. He had barely managed to escape through the back entrance of the inn he had been guzzling in, as a squad of soldiers tounced upon him.
‘Trounced’. Six. I can’t say I really blame the patricians.
After spilling a spout of blood from the leader of the mercenaries as he dismembered one of the officer’s arms, he
Yeah, he just pointless cuts off the limb of an already dead guy. Classy.
retreated to his mount to make his way towards Gorzom, rumoured to contain hoards of plunder, and many young wenches for any man who has the backbone to wrest them away.
I think we already know this about him as a character. Want to give him any more depth, or no?
Arriving after dusk in Gorzom,grignr descended down a dismal alley, reining his horse before a beaten tavern. The redhaired giant strode into the dimly lit hostelry reeking of foul odors, and cheap wine. The air was heavy with chocking fumes spewing from smolderingtorches encased within theden’s earthen packed walls. Tables were clustered with groups of drunken thieves, and cutthroats, tossing dice, or making love to willing prostitutes.
Just the place for me, he thought grimly.
Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby bench, Grignr advanced wishing to wholesomely occupy his time.
Wholesomely, yup.
The flickering torches cast weird shafts of luminescence dancing over the half naked harlot of his choice
After that description, I agree, they were weird shafts of light.
, her stringy orchid twines of hair swaying gracefully over the lithe opaque nose, as she raised a half drained mug to her pale red lips.
Lithe, opaque nose, you hear? I guess I wouldn’t want a harlot with a transparent nose either. Congrats on your good taste!
Glancing upward, the alluring complexion noted the stalwart giant as he rapidly approached. A faint glimmer sparked from the pair of deep blue ovals of the amorous female as she motioned toward Grignr, enticing him to join her. The barbarian seated himself upon a stool at the wenches side, exposing his body, naked save for a loin cloth brandishing a long steel broad sword, an iron spiraled battle helmet, and a thick leather sandals, to her unobstructed view.
Practical dress for one so often engaged in dangerous combat. Of course, we all know this is a cheap Conan ripoff so it figures.
“Thou hast need to occupy your time, barbarian”,questioned the female?
Thou hast need to use a butchering of Olde English? Olde English, also appearing in Eldest: “Thou art well-come to this city of Tarnag. By otho of Ûndin and Gannel, I, Thorv, son of Brokk, offer in peace the shelter of our halls.”
“Only if something worth offering is within my reach.” Stated Grignr,as his hands crept to embrace the tempting female, who welcomed them with open willingness.
We get it, she is slutty. Way to write female characters. Although I can’t say the male characters are much better.
“From where do you come barbarian, and by what are you called?” Gasped the complying wench, as Grignr smothered her lips with the blazing touch of his flaming mouth.
Again, speaking while gasping, impressive. She ups the ante though, she does it while being smothered. Also, that flaming mouth reminds me of some particularly over the top descriptions of Edward Cullen.
The engrossed titan ignored the queries of the inquisitive female, pulling her towards him and crushing her sagging nipples to his yearning chest. Without struggle she gave in, winding her soft arms around the harshly bronzedhide of Grignr corded shoulder blades, as his calloused hands caressed her firm
protruding busts.
… You can tell he was really getting into this scene. “Bronzedhide of Grignr corder should blades”, indeed.
“You make love well wench,” Admitted Grignr as he reached for the vessel of potent wine his charge had been quaffing.
Outside of Roguelike games where the command to drink potions is ‘q’uaff I’ve never seen this word used anywhere… besides in Eldest, that is: “The faelnirv was cold as ice as it ran down Eragon’s throat, stinging and smarting. He blinked as his eyes watered. After he indulged in a second quaff, he passed the bottle back to Orik, who seemed disappointed by how little of the concoction remained”.
A flying foot caught the mug Grignr had taken hold of, sending its blood red contents sloshing over a flickering crescent; leashing tongues of bright orange flame to the foot trodden floor.
Wait, flickering crescent? I don’t comprehend the imagery here. And again, misuse of the word ‘leash’ in some form.
“Remove yourself Sirrah, the wench belongs to me;” Blabbered a drunken soldier, too far consumed by the influences of his virile brew to take note of the superior size of his adversary.
Should really be “Remove yourself Sirrah. The wench belongs to me.” Or maybe what he thinks Grignr is his wench, and Sirrah had better get away from his big hunk of lovin’.
Grignr lithly bounded from the startled female, his face lit up to an ashen red ferocity, and eyes locked in a searing feral blaze toward the swaying soldier.
Grignr is offended that the soldier thinks he loves him, that braggart.
“To hell with you, braggard!” Bellowed the angered Ecordian, as he hefted his finely honed broad sword.
‘Braggart’. Hell, I lost track of the count again, and I’m a math major…
The staggering soldier clumsily reached towards the pommel of his dangling sword, but before his hands ever touched the oaken hilt a silvered flash was slicing the heavy air. The thews
Thews, as seen in Brisingr: “Eragon tightened his grip as he felt her mighty thews bunch underneath his legs.”
of the savages lashing right arm bulged from the glistening bronzed hide as his blade bit deeply into the soldiers neck, loping off the confused head of his senseless tormentor.
Well then.
With a nauseating thud the severed oval toppled to the floor, as the segregated torso of Grignr’s bovine antagonist swayed, then collapsed in a pool of swirled crimson.
Hehe. ‘Oval’ and ‘bovine’ are funny descriptors.
In the confusion the soldier’s fellows confronted Grignr with unsheathed cutlasses, directed toward the latters scowling make-up.
Make up? As in mascara?
“The slut should have picked his quarry more carefully!” Roared the victor in a mocking baritone growl, as he wiped his dripping blade on the prostrate form, and returned it to its scabbard.
Woah, who is the slut here? The solider you just killed, or the slut that was just hitting on you?
“The fool should have shown more prudence, however you shall rue your actions while rotting in the pits.” Stated one of the sprawled soldier’s comrades.
This is a very reasonable thing to say, all things considered.
Grignr’s hand began to remove his blade from its leather housing, but retarded the motion in face of the blades waving before his face.
Oh, I was actually expecting him to hack his way through the group, but this works too.
“Dismiss your hand from the hilt, barbarbian, or you shall find a foot of steel sheathed in your gizzard.”
Tell your hand off!
Grignr weighed his position observing his plight, where-upon he took the soldier’s advice as the only logical choice. To attempt to hack his way from his present predicament could only warrant certain death. He was of no mind to bring upon his own demise if an alternate path presented itself. The will to necessitate his life forced him to yield to the superior force in hopes of a moment of carlessness later upon the part of his captors in which he could effect a more plausible means of escape.
This sounds very similar to the ‘moral decisions’ Eragon often makes. In that, they are completely devoid of content.
“You may steady your arms, I will go without a struggle.”
“Ahem, now that I am more steadily composed, I take it upon myself to apologize for my hasty actions and become suddenly much more reasonable.”
“Your decision is a wise one, yet perhaps you would have been better off had you forced death,” the soldier’s mouth wrinkled to a sadistic grin of knowing mirth as he prodded his prisoner on with his sword point.
After an indiscriminate period of marching through slinking
alleyways and dim moonlighted streets the procession confronted a
massive seraglio. The palace area was surrounded by an iron
grating, with a lush garden upon all sides.The group was admitted through the gilded gateway and Grignr
was ledalong a stone pathway bordered by plush vegitation
‘Vegetation’.
lustfully enhanced by the moon’s shimmering rays. Upon reaching
Everything seems lusty here.
the palace the group was granted entrance, and after several minutes of explanation, led through several winding corridors to a richly draped chamber.
Confronting the group was a short stocky man seated upona golden throne. Tapestries of richly draped regal blue silk covered all walls of the chamber, while the steps leading to the throne were plated with sparkling white ivory. The man upon the throne had a naked wench seated at each of his arms, and a trusted advisor seated in back of him. At each cornwr of the chamber a guard stood at attention, with upraised pikes supported in their hands, golden chainmail adorning their torso’s and barred helmets emitting scarlet plumes enshrouding their heads. The man rose from his throne to the dias surrounding it. His plush turquois robe dangled loosely from his chuncky frame.
‘Adviser’,‘corner’,‘turquoise’, ‘dais’, ‘chunky’. What the crap, golden chain-mail? I like that the guards are wearing the most expensive items in the room.
The soldiers surrounding Grignr fell to their knees with heads bowed to the stone masonry of the floor in fearful dignity to their sovereign, leige.
‘Liege’.
“Explain the purpose of this intrusion upon my chateau!”
“Your sirenity, resplendent in noble grandeur, we have brought this yokel before you (the soldier gestured toward Grignr) for the redress or your all knowing wisdon in judgement regarding his fate.”
‘Serenity’, ‘wisdom’.
“Down on your knees, lout, and pay proper homage to your sovereign!” commanded the pudgy noble of Grignr.
Fantasy logic: fat people are evil.
“By the surly beard of Mrifk, Grignr kneels to no man!” scowled the massive barbarian.
What’s with people referring to parts of their gods’ body parts in fantasy? I never hear people say, “by Thor’s mighty biceps!” although that could just be because nobody worships Thor anymore.
“You dare to deal this blasphemous act to me! You are indeed brave stranger, yet your valor smacks of foolishness.”
This guy reflects the sentiments of all the readers.
“I find you to be the only fool, sitting upon your pompous throne, enhancing the rolling flabs of your belly in the midst of your elaborate luxuryand …” The soldier standing at Grignr’s side smote him heavily in the face with the flat of his sword, cutting short the harsh words and knocking his battered helmet to the masonry with an echo-ing clang.
“Fatty! Real men like me are BUFF!”
The paunchy noble’s sagging round face flushed suddenly pale, then pastily lit up to a lustrous cherry red radiance. His lips trembled with malicious rage, while emitting a muffled sibilant gibberish. His sagging flabs rolled like a tub of upset jelly, then compressed as he sucked in his gut in an attempt to conceal his softness.
So Grignr’s face isn’t the only one that lights up brighter than Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Also, I’m not sure ‘malicious rage’ is right, I think ‘indignant rage’ might be more appropriate.
The prince regained his statue, then spoke to the soldiers surrounding Grignr, his face conforming to an ugly expression of sadistic humor.
We are all rooting for you, Prince!
“Take this uncouth heathen to the vault of misery, and be sure that his agonies are long and drawn out before death can release him.”
Our hero.
“As you wish sire, your command shall be heeded immediately,” answered the soldier on the right of Grignr as he stared into the barbarians seemingly unaffected face.
And this guy is an everyday hero.
The advisor seated in the back of the noble slowly rose and advanced to the side of his master, motioning the wenches seated at his sides to remove themselves. He lowered his head and whispered to the noble.
“Eminence, the punishment you have decreed will cause much misery to this scum, yet it will last only a short time, then release him to a land beyond the sufferings of the human body. Why not mellow him in one of the subterranean vaults for a few days, then send him to life labor in one of your buried mines. To one such as he, a life spent in the confinement of the stygian pits will be an infinitely more appropiate and lasting torture.”
Because he could escape is why! No, no, no, you fool.
The noble cupped his drooping double chin in the folds of his briming palm, meditating for a moment upon the rationality of the councilor’s word’s, then raised his shaggy brown eyebrows and turned toward the advisor, eyes aglow.
“…As always Agafnd,
Holy smokes. If you are having trouble naming a character who doesn’t matter anyways, please just don’t.
you speak with great wisdom. Your words ring of great knowledge concerning the nature of one such as he ,” sayeth , the king. The noble turned toward the prisoner with a noticable shimmer reflecting in his frog-like eyes, and his lips contorting to a greasy grin. “I have decided to void my previous decree. The prisoner shall be removed to one of the palaces underground vaults. There he shall stay until I have decided that he has sufficiently simmered, whereupon he is to be allowed to spend the remainder of his days at labor in one of my mines.”
Upon hearing this, Grignr realized that his fate would be far less merciful than death to one such as he, who is used to roaming the countryside at will. A life of confinement would be more than his body and mind could stand up to. This type of life would be immeasurably worse than death.
Oh please, we all know you escape in a few hours anyways.
“I shall never understand the ways if your twisted civilization. I simply defend my honor and am condemned to life confinement, by a pig who sits on his royal ass wooing whores, and knows nothing of the affairs of the land he imagines to rule!” Lectures Grignr ?
Lectures Grignr? indeed. This is from a guy who was just whoring in a bar, while sitting on his unroyal ass. And just because he isn’t fat doesn’t make him not a pig.
“Enough of this! Away with the slut before I loose my control!”
Am I the only one who is weirded out every time they use ‘slut’ to describe a male? As a pejorative term, I had only heard it applied to females. I guess this is his way of promoting gender equality, or something. Of course, it’s all offset by the way he makes every single female character (cardboard cutout) a half naked whore.
Seeing the peril of his position, Grignr searched for an opening. Crushing prudence to the sward, he plowed into the soldier at his left arm taking hold of his sword, and bounding to the dias supporting the prince before the startled guards could
Verb tense shift, ouch.
regain their composure. Agafnd leaped Grignr and his sire, but found a sword blade permeating the length of his ribs before he could loosed his weapon.
Wow, that was a foul sentence. The comprehensibility is really low if you try and read it as written. I think you can always tell the passages where he gets excited, because the writing drops markedly.
The councilor slumped to his knees as Grignr slid his crimsoned blade from Agfnd’s rib cage. The fat prince stood undulating in insurmountable fear before the edge of the fiery maned comet, his flabs of jellied blubber pulsating to and fro in ripples of flowing terror.
Fiery maned comet, tehe.
“Where is your wisdom and power now, your magjesty?” Growled Grignr.
‘Majesty’.
“Right behind you, Grignr.”
The prince went rigid as Grignr discerned him glazing over his shoulder. He swlived to note the cause of the noble’s
He really has trouble with ‘swiveled’.
attention, raised his sword over his head, and prepared to leash a vicious downward cleft, but fell short as the haft of a steel rimed pike clashed against his unguarded skull. Then blackness and solitude. Silence enshrouding and ever peaceful reind supreme.
I can’t help but add a ridiculous ‘bo-oi-oi-oi-oinggggg’ sound when he gets hit over the head.
“Before me, sirrah! Before me as always! Ha, Ha Ha, Haaaa…”, nobly cackled.
Ha, ha, ha, haaa… what was so funny again?
Consciousness returned to Grignr in stygmatic pools as his mind gradually cleared of the cobwebs cluttering its inner recesses, yet the stygian cloud of charcoal ebony remained. An incompatible shield of blackness, enhanced by the bleak abscense of sound.
He really likes all things Stygian. ‘Absence’.
Grignr’s muddled brain reeled from the shock of the blow he had recieved to the base of his skull.
‘Received’, although this is a mistake I often catch myself on.
The events leading to his predicament
The word predicament is one of the most overused and silly words in existence, if you ask me. I think it’s just because I’ve seen it a ridiculous number of times in Inheritance. You know, not everything you have to pause to think about is a predicament.
were slow to filter back to him. He dickered with the notion that he was dead and had descended or sunk, however it may be, to the shadowed land beyond the the aperature of the grave, but rejected this hypothesis when his memory sifted back within his grips. This was not the land of the dead, it was something infinitely more precarious than anything the grave could offer. Death promised an infinity of peace, not the finite misery of an inactive life of confined torture, forever concealed from the life bearing shafts of the beloved rising sun. The orb that had been before taken for granted, yet now cherished above all else. To be forever refused further glimpses of the snow capped summits of the land of his birth, never again to witness the thrill of plundering unexplored lands beyond the crest of a bleeding horizon, and perhaps worst of all the denial to ever again encompass the lustful excitement of caressing the naked curves of the body of a trim yound wench.
The barbarian waxes poetic—ah, the times near death experiences can do to a person.
This was indeed one of the buried chasms of Hell concealed within the inner depths of the palace’s despised interior. A fearful ebony chamber devised to drive to the brinks of insanity the minds of the unfortunately condemned, through the inapt solitude of a limbo of listless dreary silence.
I have to confess, I think it is a pretty cool idea. That hell isn’t buried so deep, and that one could simply dig into it. Anyways.
A tightly rung elliptical circle or torches cast their wavering shafts prancing morbidly over the smooth surface of a
No torch in this story is allowed illuminate a room in a typical manner.
rectangular, ridged alter. Expertly chisled forms of grotesque gargoyles graced the oblique rim protruberating the length of the
‘Chiseled’. ‘Protruding’? It still doesn’t make sense as protruding, so I’m very confused.
grim orifice of death, staring forever ahead into nothingness in complete ignorance of the bloody rites enacted in their prescence.
‘Presence’. I’ve noted a pattern, he really has trouble with words with an ‘ence’.
Brown flaking stains decorated the golden surface of the ridge surrounding the alter, which banked to a small slit at the lower right hand corner of the altar. The slit stood above a crudely pounded pail which had several silver meshed chalices hanging at its sides. Dangling at the rimof golden mallet, the handle of which was engraved with images of twisted faces and groved at its far end with slots designed for a snug hand grip. The head of the mallet was slightly larger than a clenched fist and shaped into a smooth oval mass.
Think you’ve described the altar enough?
Encircling the marble altar was a congregation of leering shamen.
Believe it or not, that should be ‘shamans’.
Eerie chants of a bygone age, originating unknown eons before the memory of man, were being uttered from the buried recesses of the acolytes’ deep lings. Orange paint was smeared in generous globules over the tops of thw Priests’ wrinkled shaven scalps, while golden rings projected from the lobes of their pink ears. Ornate robes of lusciour
Err, ‘luscious’? Some of these are just bizarre.
purple satin enclosed their bulging torsos, attached around their waists with silvered silk lashes latched with ebony buckles in the shape of morose mis-shaped skulls. Dangling around their necks were oval fashoned medalions
‘Fashioned’;‘Medallion’.
held by thin gold chains, featuring in their centers blood red rubys which resembled crimson fetish eyeballs.
‘Rubies’. Although I admit, plural forms in English are annoying.
Cushoning their bare feet were plush red felt slippers with
‘Cushioning’.
pointed golden spikes projecting from their tips.
Situated in front of the altar, and directly adjacent to the copper pail was a massive jade idol; a misshaped, hideous bust of the shamens’ pagan diety.
‘Deity’.
The shimmering green idol was placed in a sitting posture on an ornately carved golden throne raised upon a round, dvory plated dias; it bulging arms and webbed hands resting on the padded arms of the seat. Its head was entwined in golden snake-like coils hanging over its oblong ears, which tappered off to thin hollow points. Its nose was a bulging triangular mass, sunken in at its sides with tow gaping nostrils. Dramatic beneath the nostrils was a twisted, shaggy lipped mouth, giving the impression of a slovering sadistic grimace.
‘Slavering’, perhaps?
At the foot of the heathen diety a slender, pale faced female, naked but for a golden, jeweled harness enshrouding her huge outcropping breasts, supporting long silver laces which extended to her thigh, stood before the pearl white field with noticable shivers traveling up and down the length of her exquisitely molded body. Her delicate lips trembled beneath soft narrow hands as she attemped to conceal herself from the piercing stare of the ambivalent idol.
The only kind of female in this story, I swear.
Glaring directly down towards her was the stoney, cycloptic
Definitely not a word.
face of the bloated diety. Gaping from its single obling socket was scintillating, many fauceted scarlet emerald, a brilliant gem seeming to possess a life all of its own. A priceless gleaming stone, capable of domineering the wealth of conquering empires…the eye of Argon.
All knowledge of measuring time had escaped Grignr. When a person is deprived of the sun, moon, and stars, he looses all conception of time as he had previously understood it. It seemed as if years had passed if time were being measured by terms of misery and mental anguish, yet he estimated that his stay had only been a few days in length. He has slept three times and had been fed five times since his awakening in the crypt. However, when the actions of the body are restricted its needs are also affected. The need for nourishmnet and slumber are directly proportional to the functions the body has performed, meaning that when free and active Grignr may become hungry every six hours and witness the desire for sleep every fifteen hours, whereas in his present condition he may encounter the need for food every ten hours, and the want for rest every twenty hours. All methods he had before depended upon were extinct in the dismal pit. Hence, he may have been imprisoned for ten minutes or ten years, he did not know, resulting in a disheartened emotion deep within his being.
Thanks for the incredibly lucid explanation of time dilation. As a college student, this gets to be a relatively common occurrence.
The food, if you can honor the moldering lumps of fetid mush to that extent, was born to him by two guards who opened a portal at the top of his enclosure and shoved it to him in wooden bowls, retrieving the food and water bowels from his previous meal at the same time, after which they threw back the bolts on the iron latch and returned to their other duties. Since deprived of all other means of nourishment, Grignr was impelled to eat the tainted slop in order to ward off the paings of starvation, though as he stuffed it into his mouth with his filthy fingers and struggled to force it down his throat, he imagined it was that which had been spurned by the hounds stationed at various segments of the palace.
Sissy. When Eragon was trapped in a prison cell he knew his food was being poisoned, so he went without eating!
There was little in the baren vault that could occupy his body or mind. He had paced out the length and width of the enclosure time and time again and tested every granite slab which consisted the walls of the prison in hopes of finding a hidden passage to freedom, all of which was to no avail other than to keep him busy and distract his mind from wandering to thoughts of what he believed was his future. He had memorized the number of strides from one end to the other of the cell, and knew the exact number of slabs which made up the bleak dungeon. Numorous
‘Numerous’, perhaps?
schemes were introduced and alternately discarded in turn as they succored to unravel to him no means of escape which stood the slightest chance of sucess.
Yeah, because we’ve already established this is a really intelligent character, so of course we’d expect that he could think up a way our of prison!
Anguish continued to mount as his means of occupation were rapidly exhausted. Suddenly without no tive, he wasrouted from his contemplations as he detected a faint scratching sound at the end of the crypt opposite him. The sound seemed to be caused by something trying to scrape away at the grantite blocks the floor of the enclosure consisted of, the sandy scratching of something like an animal’s claws.
Grignr gradually groped his way to the other end of the vault carefully feeling his way along with his hands ahead of him. When a few inches from the wall, a loud, penetrating squeal, and the scampering of small padded feet reverberated from the walls of the roughly hewn chamber.
Grignr threw his hands up to shield his face, and flung himself backwards upon his buttocks. A fuzzy form bounded to his hairy chest, burying its talons in his flesh while gnashing toward his throat with its grinding white teeth;its sour, fetid breath scortching the sqirming barbarians dilating nostrils.
Yeah, he is terrified of a mouse.
Grignr grappled with the lashing flexor muscles of the repugnant body of a garganuan brownhided rat, striving to hold its razor teeth from his juicy jugular, as its beady grey organs of sight glazed into the flaring emeralds of its prey.
I guess in fairness, it was a ‘garganuan’ rat, and not a mouse like I had stated.
Taking hold of the rodent around its lean, growling stomach with both hands Grignr pried it from his crimson rent breast, removing small patches of flayed flesh from his chest in the motion between the squalid black claws of the starving beast. Holding the rodent at arms length, he cupped his righthand over its frothing face, contrcting his fingers into a vice-like fist over the quivering head. Retaining his grips on the rat, grignr flexed his outstretched arms while slowly twisting his right hand clockwise and his left hand counter clockwise motion. The rodent let out a tortured squall, drawing scarlet as it violently dug its foam flecked fangs into the barbarians sweating palm, causing his face to contort to an ugly grimace as he cursed beneath his braeth.
This passage made my stomach roil, and it’s not just because the subject matter is disgusting.
With a loud crack the rodents head parted from its squirming torso, sending out a sprinking shower of crimson gore, and trailing a slimy string of disjointed vertebrae, snapped trachea, esophagus, and jugular, disjointed hyoid bone, morose purpled stretched hide, and blood seared muscles.
What’s frightening is how lucid this actually is.
Flinging the broken body to the floor, Grignr shook his blood streaked hands and wiped them against his thigh until dry, then wiped the blood that had showered his face and from his eyes. Again sitting himself upon the jagged floor, he prepared to once more revamp his glum meditations. He told himself that as long as he still breathed the gust of life through his lungs, hope was not lost; he told himself this, but found it hard to comprehend in his gloomy surroundings. Yet he was still alive, his bulging sinews at their peak of marvel, his struggling mind floating in a miral of impressed excellence of thought. Plot after plot sifted through his mind in energetic contemplations.
More moping.
Then it hit him. Minutes may have passed in silent thought or days, he could not tell, but he stumbled at last upon a plan that he considered as holding a slight margin of plausibility. He might die in the attempt, but he knew he would not submit without a final bloody struggle. It was not a foolproof plan, yet it built up a store of renewed vortexed energy in his overwroughtsoul, though he might perish in the execution of the escape, he would still be escaping the life of infinite torture in store forhim. Either way he would still cheat the gloating prince of the succored revenge his sadistic mind craved so dearly.
Vortexed energy, the very best kind.
The guards would soon come to bear him off to the prince’s buried mines of dread, giving him the sought after opportunity to execute his newly formulated plan. Groping his way along the rough floor Grignr finally found his tool in a pool of congealed gore; the carcass of the decapitated rodent; the tool that the very filth he had been sentenced too, spawned. When the time came for action he would have to be prepared, so he set himself to rending the sticky hulk in grim silence, searching by the touch of his fingertips for the lever to freedom.
“Up to the altar and be done with it wench;” ordered a fidgeting shaman as he gave the female a grim stare accompanied by the wrinkling of his lips to a mirthful grin of delight.
The girl burst into a slow steady whimper, stooping shakily to her knees and cringing woefully from the priest with both arms wound snake-like around the bulging jade jade shin rising before her scantily attired figure.
We get it, she isn’t wearing much clothing.
Her face was redly inflamed from the salty flow of tears spouting from her glassy dilated eyeballs.
With short, heavy footfals the priest approached the female,
his piercing stare never wavering from her quivering young
countenance.
Hate the word countenance. Also, I hate piercing stares.
Halting before the terrified girl he projected his arm outward and motioned her to arise with an upward movement of his hand. the girl’s whimpering increased slightly and she sunk closer to the floor rather than arising. The flickering torches outlined her trim build with a weird ornate glow as it cast a ghostly shadow dancing in horrid waves of splendor over smoothly worn whiteness of the marble hewn altar.
Watch out girl, you’ll annoy him! Also, again with the weird lighting provided by the torches.
The shaman’s lips curled back farther, exposing a set of blackened, decaying molars which transformed his slovenly grin
Oh, I guess he meant slovenly back then, now I know.
into a wide greasy arc of sadistic mirth and alternately interposed into the female a strong sensation of stomach curdling nausea.
Alternately interposed into the female stomach curdling nausea AND …? I’m expecting two objects here.
“Have it as you will female;” gloated the enhanced priest as he bent over at the waist, projecting his ape-like arms
This guy can’t move his arms, only project them.
forward, and clasped the female’s slender arms with his hairy round fists. With an inward surge of of his biceps he harshly jerked the trembling girl to her feet and smothered her salty wet cheeks with the moldy touch of his decrepid, dull red lips.
Decrepit?
The vile stench of the Shaman’s hot fetid breath over came the nauseated female with a deep soul searing sickness, causing her to wrench her head backwards and regurgitate a slimy, orange- white stream of swelling gore over the richly woven purple robeof the enthused acolyte.
A book made me mouth puke. Amazing.
The priest’s lips trembled with a malicious rage as he removed his callous paws from the girl’s arms and replaced them with tightly around her undulating neck, shaking her violently to and fro.
Undulating, yeah guess which book it also shows up in? Brisingr: “Before them was a vast expanse of undulating grass, dotted with occasional stands of willow and cottonwood trees.”
The girl gasped a tortured groan from her clamped lungs, her sea blue eyes bulging forth from damp sockets. Cocking her right foot backwards, she leashed it desperately outwards with the strength of a demon possessed, lodging her sandled foot squarely between the shaman’s testicles.
Gasped a groan, instead of, you know, groan a groan. I like the refreshing candor with which he says the priest was kicked in the testicles. Much better than, “Roran lifted his spear above his head as if he were about to throw it and, when the soldier faltered, kicked him between the fork of his legs.”
The startled priest released his crushing grip, crimping his body over at the waist overlooking his recessed belly; wide open in a deep chasim. His face flushed to a rose red shade of crimson, eyelids fluttering wide with eyeballs protruding blindly outwards from their sockets to their outmost perimeters, while his lips quivered wildly about allowing an agonized wallow to gust forth as his breath billowed from burning lungs. His hands reached out clutching his urinary gland as his knees wobbled rapidly about for a few seconds then buckled, causing the ruptured shaman to collapse in an egg huddled mass to the granite pavement, rolling helplessly about in his agony.
This guy has the oddest ways of saying someone’s eyes bulged. Also, urinary gland… otherwise known as the prostate is located inside the body, close to the bladder. I would be extremely surprised if he were able to clutch at it.
The pathetic screeches of the shaman groveling in dejected misery upon the hand hewn granite laid pavement, worn smooth by countless hours of arduous sweat and toil, a welter of ichor oozing through his clenched hands, attracted the purturbed attention of his comrades from their foetid ulations. The actions of this this rebellious wench bespoke the creedence of an unheard of sacrilige. Never before in a lost maze of untold eons had a chosen one dared to demonstrate such blasphemy in the face of the cult’s idolic diety.
The girl cowered in unreasoning terror, helpless in the face of the emblazoned acolytes’ rage; her orchid tusseled face smothered betwixt her bulging bosom as she shut her curled lashed tightly hoping to open them and find herself awakening from a morbid nightmare. yet the hand of destiny decreed her no such mercy, the antagonized pack of leering shaman converging tensely upon her prostrate form were entangled all too lividly in the grim web of reality.
I didn’t comment on this earlier, but I don’t know what an orchid tasseled face is… bulging bosom, sigh… Haha, the grim web of reality.
Shuddering from the clamy touch of the shaman as they grappled with her supple form, hands wrenching at her slender arms and legs in all directions, her bare body being molested in the midst of a labyrnth of orange smudges, purpled satin, and mangled skulls, shadowed in an eerie crimson glow; her confused head reeled then clouded in a mist of enshrouding ebony as she lapsed beneath the protective sheet of unconsiousness to a land peach and resign.
‘Clammy’, ‘labyrinth’, ‘unconsciousness’. Ah, nothing like good old fashioned molestation, eh?
“Take hold of this rope,” said the first soldier, “and climb out from your pit, slut. Your presence is requested in another far deeper hell hole.”
Wow, stilted dialog.
Grignr slipped his right hand to his thigh, concealing a small opaque object beneath the folds of the g-string wrapped about his waist. Brine wells swelled in Grignr’s cold, jade squinting eyes, which grown accustomed to the gloom of the stygian pools of ebony engulfing him, were bedazzled and blinded by flickerering radiance cast forth by the second soldiers’s resin torch.
Yes, this man really is wearing a g-string. I’m currently trying to gouge out my mind’s eye for imagining this.
Tightly gripped in the second soldier’s right hand, opposite the intermittent torch, was a large double edged axe, a long leather wound oaken handled transfixing the center of the weapon’s iron head. Adorning the torso’s of both of the sentries were thin yet sturdy hauberks, the breatplates of which were woven of tightly hemmed twines of reinforced silver braiding. Cupping the soldiers’ feet were thick leather sandals, wound about their shins to two inches below their knees. Wrapped about their waists were wide satin girdles, with slender bladed poniards dangling loosely from them, the hilts of which featured scarlet encrusted gems. Resting upon the manes of their heads, and reaching midway to their brows were smooth copper morions. Spiraling the lower portion of the helmet were short, up-curved silver spikes, while a golden hump spired from the top of each basinet. Beneath their chins, wound around their necks, and draping their clad shoulders dangled regal purple satin cloaks, which flowed midway to the soldiers feet.
Too much description, nobody cares. This happens all the time in Inheritance. “His beard was brushed and curled, and he wore buskins of the finest polished leather with silver spurs mounted upon the heels, gray wool leggings, a shirt of purple silk that shimmered in the lantern light, and, over his shirt, a mail hauberk, each link of which was wrought of pure white gold. A long ermine-trimmed cloak embroidered with the insignia of Dûrgrimst Ingeitum flowed over Orik’s shoulders and onto the floor behind him. Volund, the war hammer that Korgan, first king of the dwarves, had forged, hung at Orik’s waist from a wide, ruby-studded belt. Because of his lavish raiment and his magnificent armor, Orik seemed to glow from within; to look at him dazzled Eragon’s eyes.”
hand over hand, feet braced against the dank walls of the enclosure, huge Grignr ascended from the moldering dephs of the forlorn abyss. His swelled limbs, stiff due to the boredom of a timeless inactivity, compounded by the musty atmosture and jagged granite protuberan against his body, craved for action. The opportunity now presenting itself served the purpose of oiling his rusty joints, and honing his dulled senses.
‘Atmosphere’. ‘protuberant’. Oil those joints, tinman!
He braced himself, facing the second soldier. The sentry’s stature was was wildly exaggerated in the glare of the flickering cresset cuppex in his right fist. His eyes were wide open in a slightly slanted owlish glaze, enhanced in their sinister intensity by the hawk-bill curve of his nose andpale yellow pique of his cheeks.
Just kill him already.
“Place your hands behind your back,” said the second soldier as he raised his ax over his right shoulder blade and cast it a wavering glance. “We must bind your wrists to parry any attempts at escape. Be sure to make the knot a stout one, Broig, we wouldn’t want our guest to take leave of our guidance.”
I was hoping that their reasons for binding Grignr would have been pretty well implied by now. This kind of clumsy explanation of actions is ridiculous… and everywhere. Like, in Eragon: “Spread out; hide behind trees and bushes. Stop whoever is coming . . . or die.” The whole ‘or die’ part should be an implied consequence, but noooooo, that would be too high quality for dialog.
Broig grasped Grignr’s left wrist and reached for the barbarians’s right wrist. Grignr wrenched his right arm free and swilveled
I’m just waiting for the one time this is spelled right.
to face Broig, reach- beneath his loin cloth with his right hand. The sentry grappled at his girdle for the sheathed dagger, but recoiled short of his intentions as Grignr’s right arm swept to his gorge. The soldier went limp, his bobbing eyes rolling beneath fluttering eyelids, a deep welt across his spouting gullet. Without lingering to observe the result of his efforts, Grignr dropped to his knees. The second soldier’s axe cleft over Grignr’s head in a blze of silvered ferocity, severing several scarlet locks from his scalp. Coming to rest in his fellow’s stomach, the iron head crashed through mail and flesh with splintering force, spilling a pool of crimsoned entrails over the granite paving.
Hahahaha, friendly fire. Is everything in this dungeon made of granite? It’s not really that common of a stone. These days it’s sort of expensive.
Before the sentry could wrench his axe free from his comrade’s carcass, he found Grignr’s massive hands clasped about his throat, choking the life from his clamped lungs. With a zealous grunt, the Ecordian flexed his tightly corded biceps, forcing the grim faced soldier to one knee. The sentry plunged his right fist into Grignr’s face, digging his grimy nails into the barbarians flesh. Ejaculating a curse through rasping teeth,
Ejaculated actually appears in Harry Potter. I have no idea what possessed Rowling to say that one of her characters ejaculated words, but she did.
grignr surged the bulk of his weight foreard, bowling the beseiged soldier over upon his back. The sentry’s arms collapsed to his thigh, shuddering convulsively; his bulging eyes staring blindly from a bloated ,cherry red face.
I’ve had enough of it with bulging eyes and red faces. This is starting to seem extremely stylized.
Rising to his feet, Grignr shook the bllod from his eyes, ruffling his surly red mane as a brush fire swaying to the nightime breeze. Stooping over the spr sprawled corpse of the first soldier, Grignr retrieved a small white object from a pool of congealing gore. Snorting a gusty billow of mirth, he once more concealed th e tiny object beneath his loin cloth; the tediously honed pelvis bone of the broken rodent. Returning his attention toward the second soldier, Grignr turned to the task of attiring his limbs. To move about freely through the dim recesses of the castle would require the grotesque garb of its
soldiery.
Yeah, that guy got murdered with a bone. You know, I have trouble believing a bone could penetrate a mail hauberk, but whatever. Shaking blood out of your eyes sounds dangerously painful.
Utilizing the silence and stealth aquired in the untamed climbs of his childhood, Grignr slink through twisting corridors, and winding stairways, lighting his way with the confisticated torch of his dispatched guardian. Knowing where his steps were leading to, Grignr meandered aimlessly in search of an exit from the chateau’s dim confines. The wild blood coarsing through his veins yearned for the undefiled freedom of the livid wilderness lands.
Coursing is another word that refuses to ever be spelled in the typical manner. Should be “Not knowing where…” unless he just wanted to explore a bit since he already knew where he was going.
Coming upon a fork in the passage he treaked, voices accompanied by clinking footfalls discerned to his sensitive ears from the left corridor. Wishing to avoid contact, Grignr veered to the right passageway. If aquested as to the purpose of his presence, his barbarous accent would reveal his identity, being that his attire was not that of the castle’s mercenary troops.
At least he acknowledges that the soldiers aren’t complete idiots, unlike in Inheritance where soldiers can apparently be tricked by the stupidest of stories.
In grim silence Grignr treaded down the dingily lit corridor; a stalking panther creeping warily along on padded feet. After an interminable period of wandering through the dull corridors; no gaps to break the monotony of the cold gray walls, Grignr espied a small winding stairway. Descending the flight of arced granite slabs to their posterior, Grignr was confronted by a short haalway leading to a tall arched wooden doorway.
Halting before the teeming portal portal
You know what? If something is a door, just call it a door. Eragon: “Seven dwarves stood guard on each side of the portal.”
, Grignr restes his shaggy head sideways against the barrier. Detecting no sounds from within, he grasped the looped metel handle of the door; his arms surging with a tremendous effort of bulging muscles, yet the door would not budge. Retrieving his ax from where he had sheathed it beneath his girdle, he hefted it in his mighty hands with an apiesed grunt, and wedging one of its blackened edges into the crack between the portal and its iron rimed sill. Bracing his sandaled right foot against the rougjly hewn wall, teeth tightly clenched, Grignr appilevered the oaken haft, employing it as a lever whereby to pry open the barrier. The leather wound hilt bending to its utmost limits of endurance, the massive portal swung open with a grating of snapped latch and rusty iron hinges.
Hey cool, leverage. Still, most of the work seems to be done by his bulging thews.
Glancing about the dust swirled room in the gloomily dancing glare of his flickering cresset, Grignr eyed evidences of the enclosure being nothing more than a forgotten storeroom. Miscellaneous articles required for the maintainance of a castle were piled in disorganized heaps at infrequent intervals toward the wall opposite the barbarian’s piercing stare. Utilizing long, bounding strides, Grignr paced his way over to the mounds of supplies to discover if any articles of value were contained within their midst.
Anytime the word ‘utilize’ can be used, so can ‘use’. Do what’s easy. And, oh yay, theft.
Detecting a faint clinking sound, Grignr sprawed to his left side with the speed of a striking cobra, landing harshly upon his back; torch and axe loudly clattering to the floor in a morass of sparks and flame. A elmwoven board leaped from collapsed flooring, clashing against the jagged flooring and spewing a shower of orange and yellow sparks over Grignr’s startled face. Rising uneasily to his feet, the half stunned Ecordian glared down at the grusome arm of death he had unwittingly sprung. “Mrifk!”
If not for his keen auditory organs and lighting steeled reflexes, Grignr would have been groping through the shadowed hell-pits of the Grim Reaper. He had unknowingly stumbled upon an ancient, long forgotton booby trap; a mistake which would have stunted the perusal of longevity of one less agile. A mechanism, similar in type to that of a minature catapult was concealed beneath two collapsable sections of granite flooring. The arm of the device was four feet long, boasting razor like cleats at regular intervals along its face with which it was to skewer the luckless body of its would be victim. Grignr had stepped upon a concealed catch which relaesed a small metal latch beneath the two granite sections, causing them to fall inward, and thereby loose the spiked arm of death they precariously held in.
With any luck the next one will get him.
Partially out of curiosity and partially out of an inordinate fear of becoming a pincushion for a possible second trap, Grignr plunged his torch into the exposed gap in the floor.
Aww, come on!
The floor of a second chamber stood out seven feet below the glare. Tossing his torch through the aperature, Grignr grasped the side of an adjoining tile, dropping down.
Glancing about the room, Grignr discovered that he had decended into the palace’s mausoleum. Rectangular stone crypts cluttered the floor at evenly placed intervals. The tops of the enclosures were plated with thick layers of virgin gold, while the sides were plated with white ivory; at one time sparkling, but now grown dingy through the passage of the rays of allencompassing mother time. Featured at the head of each sarcophagus in tarnished silver was an expugnisively carved likeness of its rotting inhabitant.
A dingy atmosphere pervaded the air of the chamber; which sealed in the enclosure for an unknown period had grown thick and stale. Intermingling with the curdled currents was the repugnant stench of slowly moldering flesh, creeping ever slowly but surely through minute cracks in the numerous vaults. Due to the embalming of the bodies, their flesh decayed at a much slower rate than is normal, yet the nauseous oder was none the less repellant.
Towering over Grignr’s head was the trap he released. The mechanism of the miniaturized catapolt was cluttered with mildew and cobwebs. Notwithstanding these relics of antiquity, its efficiency remained unimpinged. To the right of the trap wound a short stairway through a recess in the ceiling; a concealed entrance leading to the mausoleum for which the catapult had obviously been erected as a silent, relentless guardian.
Yawn, description.
Climbing up the side of the device, Grignr set to the task of resetting its mechanism. In the e event that a search was organized, it would prove well to leave no evidence of his presence open to wandering eyes. Besides, it might even serve to dwindle the size of an opposing force.
Sneaky bastard, I hope it goes off on your way out.
Descending from his perch, Grignr was startled by a faintly muffled scream of horrified desperation. His hair prickled yawkishly in disorganized clumps along his scalp. As a cold danced along the length of his spinal cord. No moral/mortal barrier, human or otherwise, was capable of arousing the numbing sensation of fear inside of Grignr’s smoldering soul. However, he was overwrought by the forces of the barbarians’ instinctive fear of the supernatural. His mighty thews had always served to
Here come the thews again.
adequately conquer any tangible foe., but the intangible was something distant and terrible. Dim horrifying tales passed by word of mouth over glimmering camp fires and skins of wine had more than once served the purpose of chilling the marrowed core of his sturdy limbed bones.
Yet, the scream contained a strangely human quality, unlike that which Grignr imagined would come from the lungs of a demon or spirit, making Grignr take short nervous strides advancing to the sarcophagus from which the sound was issuing. Clenching his teeth in an attempt to steel his jangled nerves, Grignr slid the engraved slab from the vault with a sharp rasp of grinding stone. nother long drawn cry of terror infested anguish met the barbarian, scoring like the shrill piping of a demented banshee; piercing the inner fibres of his superstitious brain with primitive dread dread and awe.
Stooping over to espy the tomb’s contents, the glittering Ecordians nostrills were singed by the scorching aroma of a moldering corpse, long shut up and fermenting; the same putrid scent which permeated the entire chamber, though multiplied to a much more concentrated dosage. The shriveled, leathery packet of crumbling bones and dried flacking flesh offered no resistance, but remained in a fixed position of perpetual vigilance, watching over its dim abode from hollow gaping sockets.
The tortured crys were not coming from the tomb but from some hidden depth below! Pulling the reaking corpse from its resting place, Grignr tossed it to the floor in a broken, mangled heap. Upon one side of the crypt’s bottom was attached a series of tiny hinges while running parallel along the opposite side of a convex railing like protruberance; laid so as to appear as a part of the interior surface of the sarcophagus.
Raising the slab upon its bronze hinges, long removed from the gaze of human eyes, Grignr percieved a scene which caused his blood to smolder not unlike bubbling, molten lava. Directly below him a whimpering female lay stretched upon a smooth surfaced marble altar. A pack of grasy faced shamen clustered around her in a tight circular formation. Crouched over the girl was a tall, potbellied priest; his face dominated by a disgusting, open mouthed grimace of sadistic glee. Suspended from the acolyte’s clenched right hand was a carven oval faced mallet, which he waved menacingly over the girl’s shadowed face; an incoherent gibberish flowing from his grinning, thick lippedmouth.
In the face of the amorphos, broad breated female, stretched
Given everything else, I can only assume he meant ‘breasted’. Do petite women not get any love in fantasy?
out aluringly before his gaping eyes; the universal whim of nature filing a plea of despair inside of his white hot soul; Grignr acted in the only manner he could perceive. Giving vent to a hoarse, throat rending battle cry, Grignr plunged into the midst of the startled shamen; torch simmering in his left hand andax twirling in his right hand.
Oh boy, here comes another fight scene.
A gaunt skull faced priest standing at the far side of the altar clutched desperately at his throat, coughing furiously in an attempt to catch his breath. Lurching helplessly to and fro, the acolyte pitched headlong against the gleaming base of a massive jade idol. Writhing agonizedly against the hideous image, foam flecking his chalk white lips, the priest struggled helplessly – - – the victim of an epileptic siezure.
Woah, was there a reason the priest had a seizure? Or was it just random? What?
Startled by the barbarians stunning appearance, the chronic fit of their fellow, and the fear that Grignr might be the avantgarde of a conquering force dedicated to the cause of destroying their degenerated cult, the saman momentarily lost their composure. Giving vent to heedless pandemonium, the priests fell easy prey to Grignr’s sweeping arc of crimsoned death and maiming distruction.
No doubt this was a whirlwind of comical flying limbs.
The acolyte performing the sacrifice took a vicious blow to the stomach; hands clutching vitals and severed spinal cord as hesprawled over the altar.
I fail to comprehend how someone could clutch their own spinal cord.
The disor anized priests lurched and staggered with split skulls, dismembered limbs, and spewing entrails before the enraged Ecordian’s relentless onslaught. The howles of the maimed and dying reverberated against the walls of the tiny chamber; a chorus of hell frought despair; as the granite floor ran red with blood. The entire chamber was encompassed in the heat of raw savage butchery as Grignr luxuriated in the grips of a primitive, beastly blood lust.
Let me revise my statement, it was a hurricane of comical flying limbs and blood.
Presently all went silenet save for the ebbing groans of the sinking shaman and Grignr’s heaving breath accompanied by several gusty curses. The well had run dry. No more lambs remained for the slaughter.
He cut them all off. Four for every person. He had this sort of OCD where he can’t allow anyone to own limbs.
The rampaging stead of death having taken of Grignr for the moment, left the barbarian free to the exploitation of his other perusials. Towering over his head was the misshaped image of the cult’s hideous diety – - – Argon. The fantastic size of the idol in consideration of its being of pure jade was enough to cause the senses of any man to stagger and reel, yet thus was not the case for the behemoth. he had paid only casual notice to this incredible fact, while riviting the whole of his attention upon the jewel protruding from the idol’s sole socket; its masterfully cut faucets emitting blinding rays of hypnotising beauty. After all, a man cannot slink from a heavily guarded palace while burdened down by the intense bulk of a squatting statue, providing of course that the idol can even be hefted, which in fact was beyond the reaches of Grignr’s coarsing stamina. On the other hand, the jewel, gigantic as it was, would not present a hinderence of any mean concern.
“Help me … please … I can make it well worth your while,” pleaded a soft, anguish strewn voice wafting over Grignr’s shoulders as he plucked the dull red emerald from its roots. Turning, Grignr faced the female that had lured him into this blood bath, but whom had become all but forgotten in the heat of the battle.
Looking for an attentive mate? This isn’t the guy.
“You”; ejaculated the Ecordian in a pleased tone. “I though that I had seen the last of you at the tavern, but verilly I was mistaken.” Grignr advanced into the grips of the female’s entrancing stare, severing the golden chains that held her captive upon the altars highly polished face of ornamental limestone.
Ejaculated in this context is horrific.
As Grignr lifted the girl from the altar, her arms wound dexterously about his neck; soft and smooth against his harsh exterior. “Art thou pleased that we have chanced to meet once again?” Grignr merely voiced an sighed grunt, returning the damsels embrace while he smothered her trim, delicate lips between the coarsing protrusions of his reeking maw.
It’s still spelled ‘coursing’, no the English language has not changed its spelling. Also, apparently it isn’t rape if the barbarian forces himself on you. Only if some priests do.
“Let us take leave of this retched chamber.” Stated Grignr as he placed the female upon her feet. She swooned a moment, causing Grignr to giver her support then regained her stance. “Art thou able to find your way through the accursed passages of this castle? Mrifk! Every one of the corridors of this damned place are identical.”
Let us take leave of this retched book. No really, I’m running out of comments to make, and my stamina is really suffering.
“Aye; I was at one time a slave of prince Agaphim. His clammy touch sent a sour swill through my belly, but my efforts reaped a harvest. I gained the pig’s liking whereby he allowed me the freedom of the palace. It was through this means that I eventually managed escape at the western gate. His trust found him with a dagger thrust his ribs,” the wench statedwhimsicoracally.
Whimsicoracally. I’ve not met a person who could state things in quite that way.
“What were you doing at the tavern whence I discovered you?” asked Grignr as he lifted the female through the opening into the mausoleum.
Quite obviously she was whoring herself out.
“I had sought to lay low from the palace’s guards as they conducted their search for me. The tavern was seldom frequented by the palace guards and my identity was unknown to the common soldiers. It was through the disturbance that you caused that the palace guards were attracted to the tavern. I was dragged away shortly after you were escorted to the palace.” “What are you called by female?”
Not sensible enough to find another tavern after the disturbance… ah, common sense, how fleeting you are in fantasy.
“Carthena, daughter of Minkardos, Duke of Barwego, whose lands border along the northwestern fringes of Gorzom. I was paid as homage to Agaphim upon his thirty-eighth year,” huskedthe femme!
Husked the femme!! I have no idea why that merited an exclamation at all.
“And I am called a barbarian!” Grunted Grignr in a disgusted tone!
Again, why was this so important to require an exclamation?
“Aye! The ways of our civilization are in many ways warped and distorted, but what is your calling,” she queried, bustily? “Grignr of Ecordia.”
She really, uh, used that bust of hers in the query. What the hell.
“Ah, I have heard vaguely of Ecordia. It is the hill country to the far east of the Noregolean Empire. I have also heard Agaphim curse your land more than once when his troops were routed in the unaccustomed mountains and gorges.” Sayeth she.
“Aye. My people are not tarnished by petty luxuries and baubles. They remain fierce and unconquerable in their native climes.” After reaching the hidden panel at the head of the stairway, Grignr was at a loss in regard to its operation. His fiercest heaves were as pebbles against burnished armour! Carthena depressed a small symbol included within the elaborate design upon the panel whereopen it slowly slid into a cleft in the wall. “How did you come to be the victim of those crazed shamen?” Quested Grignr as he escorted Carthena through the piles of rummage on the left side of the trap.
Blahblahblah. I won’t be interested in your conversation when you continue to be an unlikable oaf.
“By Agaphim’s orders I was thrust into a secluded cell to await his passing of sentence. By some means, the Priests of Argon acquired a set of keys to the cell. They slew the guard placed over me and abducted me to the chamber in which you chanced to come upon the scozsctic sacrifice. Their hell-spawned cult demands a sacrifice once every three moons upon its full journey through the heavens. They were startled by your unannounced appearance through the fear that you had been sent by Agaphim. The prince would surely have submitted them to the most ghastly of tortures if he had ever discovered their unfaithfulness to Sargon, his bastard diety. Many of the partakers of the ritual were high nobles and high trustees of the inner palace; Agaphim’s pittiless wrath would have been unparalled.”
Amazingly well spoken for some random whore, but I guess she is the daughter of a noble. Still, I have no idea how she knows so much about this religion.
“They have no more to fear of Agaphim now!” Bellowed Grignr in a deep mirthful tome; a gleeful smirk upon his face. “I have seen that they were delivered from his vengence.”
Engrossed by Carthena’s graceful stride and conversation Grignr failed to take note of the footfalls rapidly approaching behind him. As he swung aside the arched portal linking the chamber with the corridors beyond, a maddened, blood lusting screech reverberated from his ear drums. Seemingly utilizing the speed of thought, Grignr swiveled to face his unknown foe. With gaping eyes and widened jaws, Grignr raised his axe above his surly mein; but he was too late.
Did he die? Did he die? Oh, I hope he died! What a cliffhanger.
With wobbling knees and swimming head, the priest that had lapsed into an epileptic siezure rose unsteadily to his feet. While enacting his choking fit in writhing agony, the shaman was overlooked by Grignr. The barbarian had mistaken the siezure for the death throes of the acolyte, allowing the priest to avoid his
stinging blade.
Should have chopped off all his limbs, I guess.
The sight that met the priests inflamed eyes nearly served to sprawl him upon the floor once more. The sacrificial sat it grim, blood splattered silence all around him, broken only by the occasional yelps and howles of his maimed and butchered fellows. Above his head rose the hideous idol, its empty socket holding the shaman’s ifurbished infuriated gaze. His eyes turned to a stoney glaze with the realization of the pillage and blasphemy. Due to his high succeptibility following the siezure, the priest was transformed into a raving maniac bent soley upon reaking vengeance. With lips curled and quivering, a crust of foam dripping from them, the acolyte drew a long, wicked looking jewel hilted scimitar from his silver girdle and fled through the aperature in the ceiling uttering a faintly perceptible ceremonial jibberish.
Dear god, so wordy. Let me sum it up for “He was pissed”.
A sweeping scimitar swung towards Grignr’s head in a shadowed blur of motion. With Axe raised over his head, Grignr prepared to parry the blow, while gaping wideeyed in open mouthed perplexity. Suddenly a sharp snap resounded behind the frothing shaman. The scimitar, halfway through its fatal sweep, dropped from a quivering nerveless hand, clattering harmlessly to the stoneage. Cutting his screech short with a bubbling, red mouthed gurgle, the lacerated acolyte staggered under the pressure of the released spring-board. After a moment of hopeless struggling, the shaman buckled, sprawling face down in a widening pool of bllod and entrails, his regal purple robe blending enhancingly with the swirling streams of crimson.
He’s not dead. This is the first time a story besides A Song for Lya has made me cry. Amazing.
“Mrifk! I thought I had killed the last of those dogs;” muttered Grignr in a half apathetic state.
I could’ve have sworn Mrifk was a dwarven god in some other series…
“Nay Grignr. You doubtless grew careless while giving vent to your lusts. But let us not tarry any long lest we over tax the fates. The paths leading to freedom will soon be barred. The wretch’s crys must certainly have attracted unwanted attention,” the wench mused.
Thanks, Ensign Obvious.
“By what direction shall we pursue our flight?”
“Up that stair and down the corridor a short distance is the concealed enterance to a tunnel seldom used by others than the prince, and known to few others save the palace’s royalty. It is used mainly by the prince when he wishes to take leave of the palace in secret. It is not always in the Prince’s best interests to leave his chateau in public view. Even while under heavy guard he is often assaulted by hurtling stones and rotting fruits. The commoners have little love for him.” lectured the nerelady!
Yay, too bad we don’t care.
“It is amazing that they would ever have left a pig like him become their ruler. I should imagine that his people would rise up and crucify him like the dog he is.”
Actually, this amazes me about US politics, but I won’t get into that here.
“Alas, Grignr, it is not as simple as all that. His soldiers are well paid by him. So long as he keeps their wages up they will carry out his damned wished. The crude impliments of the commonfolk would never stand up under an onslaught of forged blades and protective armor; they would be going to their own slaughter,” stated Carthena to a confused, but angered Grignr as they topped the stairway.
Welcome to the real world, you’ve been hiding under that rock for quite some time now, there are some things you should know…
“Yet how can they bear to live under such oppression? I would sooner die beneath the sword than live under such a dog’s command.” added Grignr as the pair stalked down the hall in the direction opposite that in which Grignr had come.
“But all men are not of the same mold that you are born of, they choose to live as they are so as to save their filthy necks from the chopping block.” Returned Carthena in a disgusted tone as she cast an appiesed glance towards the stalwart figure at her side whose left arm was wound dextrously about her slim waist; his slowly waning torch casting their images in intermingling wisps as it dangled from his left hand.
Sigh. This is why authors should not try to moralize in their stories. It just comes off as stupid.
Presently Carthena came upon the panel, concealed amonst the other granite slabs and discernable only by the burned out cresset above it. “As I push the cresset aside push the panel inwards.” Catrhena motioned to the panel she was refering to and twisted the cresset in a counterclockwise motion. Grignr braced his right shoulder against the walling, concentrating the force of his bulk against it. The slab gradually swung inward with a slight grating sound. Carthena stooped beneath Grignr’s corded arms and crawled upon all fours into the passage beyond. Grignr followed after easing the slab back into place.
Yay, secret passages!
Winding before the pair was a dark musty tunnel, exhibiting tangled spider webs from it ceiling to wall and an oozing, sickly slime running lazily upon its floor.
I have no idea how this would happen.
Hanging from the chipped wall upon GrignR’s right side was a half mouldered corpse, its grey flacking arms held in place by rusted iron manacles. Carthena flinched back into Grignr’s arms at sight of the leering set in an ugly distorted grimmace; staring horribly at her from hollow gaping sockets.
The janitor has been on vacation for some time now.
“This alcove must also be used by Agaphim as a torture chamber. I wonder how many of his enemies have disappeared into these haunts never to be heard from again,” pondered the hulking brute.
Words that do not belong together: ‘pondered’, ‘hulking’, ‘brute’.
“Let us flee before we are also caught within Agaphim’s ghastly clutches. The exit from this tunnel cannot be very far from here!” Said Carthena with a slight sob to her voice, as she sagged in Grignr’s encompasing embrace.
Relax woman, you are with an unstoppable juggernaut of implausible dissection.
“Aye; It will be best to be finished with this corridor as soon as it is possible. But why do you flinch from the sight of death so? Mrift! You have seen much death this day without exhibiting such emotions.” Exclaimed Grignr as he led her trembling form along the dingy confines.
“—-The man hanging from the wall was Doyanta. He had committed the folly of showing affections for me in front of Agaphim —- he never meant any harm by his actions!” At this Carthena broke into a slow steady whimpering, chokking her voice with gasping sobs. “There was never anything between us yet Agaphim did this to him! The beast! May the demons of Hell’s deepest haunts claw away at his wretched flesh for this mercilessact!” she prayed.
Woah, character development. A little late now, but whatever.
“I detect that you felt more for this fellow than you wish to let on … but enough of this, We can talk of such matters after we are once more free to do so.” With this Grignr lifted the grieved female to her feet and strode onward down the corridor, supporting the bulk of her weight with his surging left arm.
Give me a break, why would you care? We all know you just want to impregnate her in a seedy hotel room and leave.
Presently a dim light was perceptibly filtering into the tunnel, casting a dim reddish hue upon the moldy wall of the passage’s grim confines. Carthena had ceased her whimpering and partially regained her composure. “The tunnel’s end must be nearing. Rays of sunlight are beginning to seep into …”
Grignr clameed his right hand over Carthena’s mouth and with a slight struggle pulled her over to the shadows at the right hand wall of the path, while at the same time thrusting this torch beneath an overhanging stone to smother its flickering rays. “Be silent; I can hear footfalls approaching through the tunnel;” growled Grignr in a hushed tone.
“All that you hear are the horses corraled at the far end of the tunnel. That is a further sign that we are nearing our goal.” She stated!
This woman has an amazing mouth. It can speak while gasping, groan while gasping, and speak while her mouth is in a death clamp from Mr. Barbarian. She stated! indeed.
“All that you hear is less than I hear! I heard footsteps coming towards us. Silence yourself that we may find out whom we are being brought into contact with. I doubt that any would have thought as yet of searching this passage for us. The advantage of surprize will be upon our side.” Grignr warned.
Carthena cast her eyes downward and ceased any further pursuit towards conversation, an irritating habit in which she had gained an amazing proficiency.
Quiet Lois, men are talking. Okay, so Family Guy references stopped being funny when Family Guy stopped being funny. Sorry.
Two figures came into the pairs view, from around a turn in the tunnel. They were clothed in rich luxuriant silks and rambling o on in conversation while ignorant of their crouching foes waiting in an ambush ahead.
“…That barbarian dog is cringing beneath the weight of the lash at this moment sire. He shall cause no more disturbance.”
Sigh, what a convenient thing to say.
“Aye, and so it is with any who dare to cross the path of Sargon’s chosen one.” said the 2nd man.
“But the peasants are showing signs of growing unrest. They complain that they cannot feet their families while burdened with your taxes.”
“I shall teach those sluts the meaning of humility! Order an immediate increase upon their taxes. They dare to question my sovereign authority, Ha-a, they shall soon learn what true oppression can be. I will … “
Now, I haven’t met any despots, but I’m almost sure this isn’t how they think. Not at all.
A shodowed bulk leapt from behind a jutting promontory as it brought down a double edged axe with the spped of a striking thought.
Speed of a striking thought. So what he means here is an extremely slow speed, given the kinds of characters we are dealing with.
One of the nobles sagged lifeless to the ground, skull split to the teeth.
Quite a blow. As you’ll observe, there was no brain inside.
Grignr gasped as he observed the bisected face set in its leering death agonies. It was Agafnd! The dead mans comrade having recovered from his shock drew a jewel encrusted dagger from beneath the folds of his robe and lunged toward the barbarians back. Grignr spun at the sound from behind and smashed down his crimsoned axe once more. His antagonist lunged howling to a stream of stagnent green water, grasping a spouting stump that had once been a wrist. Grignr raised his axe over his head and prepaired to finish the incomplete job, but was detered half way through his lunge by a frenzied screech from behind.
These fights sure are convoluted. And Grignr is apparently some sort of glass canon of doom, because the moment any scamp tries to jump on him, he is in big trouble.
Carthena leapt to the head of the writhing figure, plunging a smoldering torch into the agonized face. The howls increased in their horrid intensity, stifled by the sizzling of roasting flesh, then died down until the man was reduced to a blubbering mass of squirming, insensate flesh.
A blubbering mass? Good gracious, this person isn’t made of rubber, how did you melt him completely?
Grignr advance to Carthena’s side wincing slightly from the putrid aroma of charred flesh that rose in a puff of thick white smog throughout the chamber. Carthena reeled slightly, staring dasedly downward at her gruesome handywork. “I had to do it … it was Agaphim … I had to, “ she exclaimed!
It’s not like any of the characters in this story know what regret is.
“Sargon should be more carful of his right hand men.” Added Grignr, a smug grin upon his lips. “But to hell with Sargon for now, the stench is becoming bothersome to me.” With that Grignr grasped Carthena around the waist leading her around the bend in the cave and into the open.
People this smug should be thrown off cliffs. But since we know that can’t kill people, we should then climb down the cliff, cut off all their limbs, lock the limbs in separate chests, and then throw each chest into the center of a different sun. You can never be too cautious when killing off improbably heroes.
A ball of feral red was rising through the mists of the eastern horizon, disipating the slinking shadows of the night.
Good news, Christopher. You aren’t the only one who struggles to describe the sun! “The sun rose the next morning with a glorious conflagration of pink and yellow”
A coral stood before the pair, enclosing two grazing mares. Grignr reached into a weighted down leather pouch dangling at his side and drew forth the scintillant red emerald he had obtained from the bloated idol. Raising it toward the sun he said, “We shall do well with bauble, eh!”
Carthena gaped at the gem gasping in a terrified manner “The eye of Argon, Oh! Kalla!” At this the gem gave off a blinding glow, then dribbled through Grignr’s fingers in a slimy red ooze. Grignr stepped back, pushing Carthena behind him. The droplets of slime slowly converged into a pulsating jelly-like mass. A single opening transfixed the blob, forminf into a leechlike maw.
What?
Then the hideous transgressor of nature flowed towards Grignr, a trail of greenish slime lingering behind it. The single gap puckered repeatedly emitting a ghastly sucking sound.
Grignr spread his legs into a battle stance, steeling his quivering thews for a battle royal with a thing he knew not how to fight. Carthena wound her arms about her protectors neck, mumbling, “Kill it! Kill!” While her entire body trembled.
Carthena is on cheer-leading duty. Interestingly, I’m chanting the same thing, just for the other side.
The thing was almost upon Grignr when he buried his axe into the gristly maw. It passed through the blob and clanged upon the ground. Grignr drew his axe back with a film of yellow-green slime clinging to the blade. The thing was seemingly unaffected. Then it started to slooze up his leg. The hairs upon his nape stoode on end from the slimey feel of the things buly, bulk. The Nautous sucking sound became louder, and Grignr felt the blood being drawn from his body. With each hiss of hideous pucker the thing increased in size.
It began to slooze up his leg. Ahahaha.
Grignr shook his foot about madly in an attempt to dislodge the blob, but it clung like a leech, still feeding upon his rapidly draining life fluid. He grasped with his hands trying to rip it off, but only found his hands entangled in a sickly glue- like substance. The slimey thing continued its puckering ; now having grown the size of Grignr’s leg from its vampiric feast.
Yes! Drink his milkshake! Drink it up!
Grignr began to reel and stagger under the blob, his chalk white face and faltering muscles attesting to the gigantic loss of blood. Carthena slipped from Grignr in a death-like faint, a morrow chilling scream upon her red rubish lips. In final desperation Grignr grasped the smoldering torch upon the ground and plunged it into the reeking maw of the travestry. A shudder passed through the thing. Grignr felt the blackness closing upon his eyes, but held on with the last ebb of his rapidly waning vitality. He could feel its grip lessoning as a hideous gurgling sound erupted from the writhing maw. The jelly like mass began to bubble like a vat of boiling tar as quavers passed up and down its entire form.
What?! What?! No, no, no, no, no, no. WRONG. Gawd, no. It didn’t kill him? Least satisfying ending ever. I have no words. What on earth. I’m so disappointed. I’ll have to personally murder Grignr in a guest appearance in my NaNoWriMo or something, disgusting.
Kitty on 12 October 2008, 19:34 said:
MST3k version was funny though. :B
- bricked –
SlyShy on 12 October 2008, 20:31 said:
Yes, it was. For reference, it can be found here.
Rhaego on 12 October 2008, 20:31 said:
What on God’s green, glorious, verdant, forested, moutainous, ocean-covered, wonderful, terrible, pitiable, honorable earth would make you read this horrible, terrible, brick-like, likable-protagonist-lacking, over-descriptive book? :p
SlyShy on 12 October 2008, 20:34 said:
Just you wait, I’m doing Kenneth Eng’s Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate next, which may be the worst Sci-Fi ever.
Virgil on 12 October 2008, 20:38 said:
Ugh, I saw some horrible looking sci-fi stuff at the store today. I did pick up American Gods, A Game of Thrones, and A Wizard of Earthsea. But still, horrible stuff, just making me look at the cover art makes me want to gag.
Eragon'sShrink19 on 12 October 2008, 20:45 said:
Oh gosh… Jim Theis, Jim Theis. Wherefore art thou Jim Theis.
If I have kids, and they ever complain about reading for school, I’m just going to replace all their toys with The Eye of Argon books, and see how that compares.
I can’t believe you read seven and a half chapters of this, Es. Hahaha.
Snow White Queen on 12 October 2008, 21:01 said:
wow, christopher paolini seems gifted in comparison…I seem gifted in comparison!
have you heard of the game when you try to read this book out loud with a straight face? sounds impossible.
and what is it with these people and the word ‘thews’?
Virgil on 12 October 2008, 21:06 said:
I think a worse version of the game is to inhale helium, and then read it aloud. I can’t speak normally with helium, and definitely not this.
SubStandardDeviation on 12 October 2008, 21:53 said:
For those interested, the full text, game rules, MST3K, and other awfulness can be found here.
Ah, “The Eye of Argon.” Read it a few years ago (not out loud mind you). Still cracked up laughing once or twice. I bestow much appreciation to my school library’s 1970’s hardcover collection of good S&S.
SlyShy, I dearly hope you’re not buying D:LT. If you do find a pirate copy, pass it on?
SlyShy on 12 October 2008, 21:56 said:
I think I will only be able to stand going through the excerpt, so that’s all I’ll do. I don’t want to buy the book, because then he might be able to afford bail to get out of jail again. shudder
Snow White Queen on 12 October 2008, 22:43 said:
did his parents know what he was writing? and i didn’t mean the general awfulness, but the actual subject matter.
i mean, he WAS sixteen…
Carbon Copy on 13 October 2008, 09:38 said:
Nice. This book suffers from a fear of using the same word twice. “Titan”, “giant”, “redhaired barbarian”. The guy has a name (a stupid name, but a name all the same), so why not use it? And seriously… describing a head as an oval? Just call it a head!
(Is it just me, or would Oval Bovine be a great name for a character?)
Anyway, reading this reminded me I keep meaning to post an article on editing your own work, full of lots of good tips that Theis really needed. I’ll try and get that sorted out at some point this week.
By the way, “advisor” is a perfectly acceptable variant spelling. Oh, and Theis doesn’t say the woman kicks the priest “in” the testicles; he says she kicks the priest “between” the testicles. Priceless.
SlyShy on 13 October 2008, 10:27 said:
I didn’t notice that. Haha, hilarious.
Spanman on 13 October 2008, 22:02 said:
Ooh, ouch.
Must… find… anecdote…
Virgil on 13 October 2008, 22:07 said:
Anecdote, or antidote? I get those mixed up, and they’re quite different.
SlyShy on 13 October 2008, 22:30 said:
An anecdote will get her all fixed up. :P
“Help, old man! I need to be cured.”
“Oh, okay. How about a story?”
Proserpina FC on 25 April 2009, 00:35 said:
Oh, man, I know this story….
The infamy of it is said to have shamed the author into never writing again. Poor guy.
HKUriah on 17 January 2012, 16:33 said:
You know, in spite of all the, justified, criticism of this story, it actually does have a storyline that can be followed, and a semblance of characterization.
What, no review of the ending?
BettyCross on 18 January 2012, 10:31 said:
At sci-fi conventions I picked up some info about Jim Theiss (rhymes with “ice”). He was 15 when he wrote it. As an adult he became a journalist, and still came to cons. He died in the 1990s sometime. Despite continued attendance at cons, nobody connected Jim Theiss the convention owner with Jim Theiss of Eye of Argon.
BettyCross on 18 January 2012, 10:35 said:
About the lack of an ending: Eye of Argon was published in a mimeographed fanzine and was the last article in the issue, which was stapled together. In the copy that survived for and made its rounds for decades, the last page was torn off.
In the past decade, somebody found another copy of the fanzine in the collection of famous fan Forrest J. Ackermann. The last page was intact. It describes Grignr slaying the beast and riding off in triumph as the Norgolians cheer.
Now you know the rest of the story.
BettyCross on 18 January 2012, 12:03 said:
When I wrote “convention owner” I meant “convention goer.” Sorry.