The Worst Science Fiction Story Ever Written.

[Zack]

Saw something solicited in the back of the Previews catalog called "The Eye of Argon."

Apparently, it's an SF story written by a 16-year-old that over the last 30-odd years has earned an underground reputation as the worst SF story ever.

Here is the wikipedia page for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Theis

EDIT: And here it is online!

Apparently, there is a game where people try to read it out loud with a straight face.

I am fascinated. Does anyone know more about this? This is like the original bad fanfic.

Feel bad for this Theis guy though. We ALL write lousy stuff as teenagers.

[Arrjay]

It sounds hilarious.

Though I can't say I've heard of this before.

Thanks for sharing.

[Damo]

.....Except that it's not Sci-Fi. It's fantasy.

Honestly, I was hoping you'd found the sci-fi equivalent of Argon. Got my hopes up.

[MartinRedmond]

Wuz it written by Brandon and his g/f? I forget her name.

[Larry Dixon]

Eye of Argon readings are a tradition among scifi pros and fans alike. A drinking game.

Misty (Mercedes Lackey) & I also get called upon by various publishers to do "doctoring" on books that have, erh, trouble. We have one manuscript (by a major writer) that we very literally keep in a locked box so it does not get out and contaminate other work.

The drinking game for that consists of 3 ten-sided dice; roll to randomly pick a page, take a deep breath, and read out loud. People seldom make it through a whole breath before busting out laughing.

[Michael P]

Heh. Good ol' Grignr. I came this close to naming my Neverwinter Nights character after him.

It was also given the MST3K treatment. The first link on this page: http://www.keithpalmer.ca/msting-mine/authors/a.html

For anyone who's not brave enough to go looking, it's basically a bad Conan ripoff, almost a conglomeration of the various cliches and missteps from the large genre of such Conan ripoffs.

[shrike]

Wow it's ALMOST as good as Infinite Crisis!

[Noah Johnson]

Hell, for years I did an Eye of Argon party at BayCon. We'd make this incredible punch and pass the story in a circle. Rules were you had to read it out loud until you got to the bottom of a page or you laughed. Heckling was encouraged. Anyone trying to zen it, read in a monotone voice without hearing the words coming out of their mouth, was mercilessly mocked until they giggled. I had a friend who once failed to make it through ONE WORD on his turn. Admittedly, the word was "Mrifk!"...

Anyway, that hasn't been the worst geek story for a long time. The absolute worst story ever written, which also happens to be loosely classifiable as science fiction, is "Sailor Moon: American Kitsune", by David Gonterman.

I love indefensible crap. I own Roger Corman's FANTASTIC FOUR, I own the TV pilot for The Spirit, I own THE PIRATE MOVIE for godsake. I was rereading McGonagall's "The Tay Bridge Disaster" not an hour ago. I can say with some confidence that I'm a minor authority on utter artistic garbage. So when I tell you that I have never, in my entire life, seen anything even CLOSE to "Sailor Moon: American Kitsune", bear in mind that I've looked. I recommend it most highly to Gilda, as she knows a lot about both English literature and human psychosexual dysfunction, so the interaction between the two in this story may prove as fascinating to her as it does to me. Everyone should have a look at it, though. If you can make it through the first few pages without being left gape-jawed in astonishment and horror, you either have nerves of steel or something VERY wrong with you.

http://www.tuxedojack.com/godawful/gonterman.htm

[TCJohnson]

I love indefensible crap.

Then why are you so down on the current administration?

[Sabrinaset]

We've found it! The missing literary link between Civil War and All-Star Batman and Robin!

[Magneto_X]

Anything written by L. Ron Hubbard.

[Kyuubi]

I once read a Neon Genesis fan fiction story where Shinji is actually a werewolf in human form. At the end of the story he changes into his true form and goes to live with his werewolf family.



I stopped reading fan fiction after that.

[Noah Johnson]

Most offensive thing I ever heard of in fanfic, Gonterman excepted for the moment, was a Harry Potter fic I heard about, filling in some of the missing years of fangirl-favorite Sirius Black and his erotic adventures around the globe after Hogwarts and before Azkaban. Including one period when he worked as a flight attendant under the name Gaetan Dugas.

I'm not a violent man, but if someone were to tell me they'd written that story, I would have no choice but to bitchslap them so hard their face would be on the back of their head.

[Magneto_X]

Noah:

That's pretty tame for Harry Potter erotic fanfic.

There's the "straight" fic that has Harry/Hermione, Snape/Hermione etc then there's the "slash" with Harry/Snape, Draco Malfoy/Harry etc.

[Matt Linton]

I made it to the first line of dialogue without laughing (I may have tittered once). Couldn't get past the second line of dialogue.