Reddit Review Challenge #1

The Eye of Argon

By /u/PeterBain

Editor’s note: This was actually the second time we hosted a Reddit open review challenge. But it got named as #1 for some reason. I guess now that we are insignificantly popular and got a new site we have to disregard everything that happened before. Here are the rest of the entries.

The Eye of Argon is a unique work of fiction with an interesting narrative. It employs the drawn out narrative of the most stereotypical literotica and applies it to everything except sex. And that’s the closest thing this Piece of Shit™ is getting to a compliment.

The Eye of Argon is an uninspired novella that follows the exploits of Grignr the barbaria. The plot clumsily strings together several scenes of clinically graphic violence, with the occasional cutaway to the titular MacGuffin, before tying it all together in a hasty conclusion. Yet as lacklustre as the plot may be, the same could be said about superior works if I tried hard enough. Luckily, there is plenty more to identify this as a top quality Piece of Shit™.

First is the prose, which assaults the reader with adjectives from the very start, and refuses to let up. As you read Eye of Argon, it becomes painfully clear that the author sat with a thesaurus next to him the whole time, desperately trying to sound loquacious. A good vocabulary can bring a bland work of prose to life, but in this instance I’m surprised people didn’t grab torches and pitchforks. Having said that, at least the author is consistent in their descriptions. Once a location has been described as “Stygian”, you can bet your arse that “Stygian” it shall remain. Sometimes twice in the same sentence.

Of course, there are plenty of evidence that Theis put down his thesaurus, but only to swap it out for an anatomy textbook. Hardly a fight scene passes that someone isn’t injured or attacked in a very specific way. For example, the rat that attacks Grignr in prison rips at his chest with “lashing flexor muscles”. Or there’s the priest assaulted by his unwilling sacrifice, reducing him to “clutching his urinary gland” before collapsing in “an egg huddled mass”. Anyone who knows what the hell that means, please answer in the comments.

Speaking of women, the treatment of the only female character in the novella is pretty atrocious. Reduced to nothing but a sex object, the characters all refer to her as a “wench”. The author, on the other hand, employs the word “female” in what they no doubt thought was the gruff manner befitting a ‘roided up barbarian. Instead it comes across more like a researcher who knows they exist, but has never seen one in real life. Not that I’m accusing Theis of out and out sexism, of course. The word “slut” is thrown around plenty, but the recipient is always Grignr, our poster boy for testosterone. Either Theis didn’t know what the word meant, or it’s just part of a larger subtext I’m not even going to begin to discuss here.

There is one positive thing that I can say about The Eye of Argon, and that is that there is a merciful lack of sex. While it is clear that Grignr has a great interest in the pleasures of the flesh, his interactions with women are curiously brief. The only example is a brief grope before skipping straight to Grignr telling his partner that she “make[s] love well”. As a reader, I can only conclude that Theis skipped the sex scene completely, and for that I thank him. I dread to think what his laboured and meticulous descriptive style would do to a sex scene had there been one.

While it has many flaws, it’s hard to hate The Eye of Argon. I’d even go so far as to suggest that it illicit sympathy. This story’s mistakes are so obvious, the ugliness so plain to see, that no one can mistake it for anything other than what it is: painfully adolescent. To hate Theis’ story would be like hating a puppy for shitting next to the newspaper. Sure, you might be angry and a little bit disgusted, but not long after, you’ll make your peace with it and hope that they do better next time.

Which is more than I can say for the Piece of Shit™ publisher who decided to put this in print rather than politely send it back. Fuck you very much, whoever you are.