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FROM: "Siewert, Karl" <ksiewer@tulsalibrary.org>
REC'D: 5/14/02, 3:17 PM

>>"Dennis Lien" <Dennis.K.Lien-1@tc.umn.edu> wrote on Tue, 14 May 2002
13:35:35 -0500

[Snippety snip]

>>By the same "this is the name that comes up first" criteria,
>>Fanthorpe's single "worst" sf novel is GALAXY 666.

But we can't forget that the widely acknowledged "Worst SF Story of All
Time" is
Jim Theis' "The Eye of Argon". An introductory page is at
http://ftp.logica.com/~stepneys/sf/argon.htm. I recommend what the
webmaster calls the "lightly annotated version" which left me weeping the
first time I read it.

--
Karl G. Siewert, MLIS | 250-7307
Business Reference Librarian | ksiewer@
Hardesty Regional Library | tulsalibrary
Tulsa City-County Library System | .org

FROM: Dennis Lien <Dennis.K.Lien-1@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 5/14/02, 5:42 PM

At 03:12 PM 5/14/02 -0500, you wrote:
>>>"Dennis Lien" <Dennis.K.Lien-1@tc.umn.edu> wrote on Tue, 14 May 2002
>13:35:35 -0500
>
> [Snippety snip]
>
>>>By the same "this is the name that comes up first" criteria,
>>>Fanthorpe's single "worst" sf novel is GALAXY 666.
>
>But we can't forget that the widely acknowledged "Worst SF Story of All
>Time" is
>Jim Theis' "The Eye of Argon". An introductory page is at
>http://ftp.logica.com/~stepneys/sf/argon.htm. I recommend what the
>webmaster calls the "lightly annotated version" which left me weeping the
>first time I read it.
>
>--
>Karl G. Siewert, MLIS | 250-7307

A good choice, certainly. I'm still not convinced it's naive and not
the masterful hoax of someone who knew what hir was doing, but that's
probably irrelevant. (Except that it does call into question the
definition of "worst": "Eye of Argon" or GALAXY 666 or any Keeler
novel might be inept in any number of ways, but for some of us--I'd
hope for most of us--that sheer ineptness is itself so amusing that
we get into "so bad it's good" territory.)

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien@tc.umn.edu

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