No, I don't want to send a copy to Arnie, I just want to read it again

October 23, 2006 3:26 AM

Help me find this ANCIENT, early-internet Conan The Barbarian fanfic/spoof story! My google fu has failed me!

When I was 15 or 16 years old (so, around 1993-1994 or so), I was working at my mom's company as a summer student. One of the other summer students was a year or two older than me, and I like to think of him as my first real geek mentor. He would get me copies of Doom add-ons, and various other things from this thing he called an "FTP". It was incredible, the amount of stuff he had access to. Any way, the only real gem (aside from the Aliens Doom game, which scared the bejesus out of me) that sticks out in my mind was a fairly long (could have been novella length) text file, which was in several parts, chronicling the adventures of Conak (I think?) the Barbarian. Obviously, Conak was based on Conan, but the story was humourous in nature. At the time, I was really into Douglas Adams style humour (well, still am, I guess, but I was just getting into it at the time) and I found this story to be somewhat similar to Adams' style. I really found it hilarious at the time, but I never got to finish it, because it was posted in parts, and the summer finished before the last part was posted (maybe it never was?). I'd really like to find it again, to a) see if it holds up to my memory if it being absolutely hilarious (it probably won't) and b) see how it ends!

My google(yahoo, askjeeves, msn, any search engine I could find)-fu has yielded no results! Certainly, *somebody* must have been in that scene at the time. I'm 99% positive that he wasn't accessing internet directly, as I don't recall ISPs being available then, but rather through a local BBS (using FidoNet? Is that even what FidoNet was for?) or something. This would have been in the Greater Toronto Area. I *would* try and track down the dude himself, but I can't remember his name.

posted by antifuse to computers & internet (5 comments total)

This seems too easy (and the name of the barbarian is wrong, and it is difficult to regard this story as 'absolutely hilarious', and the comparison to Douglas Adams makes me feel a little uncomfortable), but you're not thinking of the Eye of Argon? I bet you're not, but it's worth a try.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:58 AM on October 23, 2006

I bet you're not too. But I think you'd remember Argon a bit ....differently. I suspect the work is fanfic - and possibly of its time, which might mean it didn't survive the BBS transition. Your best bet might be to remember the chap's name. I recall similar things on BBSs and unless they later got published (unlikely) they vanished with the carrier signal.

At worst - put in a q to rec.arts.sf.written on usenet.
posted by Sparx at 5:30 AM on October 23, 2006

Sweet mother of jesus, it's not Eye of Argon (which I had never heard of before, and now I feel I must burn out my eyes). I'm guessing it was just fanfic as well, but I was hoping since it wasn't just on a BBS, but rather had made its way into some early FTP servers, that it was a bit more widely spread.

Wow, that Eye of Argon is some BAD fiction. Shudder.
posted by antifuse at 6:58 AM on October 23, 2006

Not what you're looking for, but Groo the Wanderer was another Conan parody.
posted by electroboy at 7:05 AM on October 23, 2006

Perhaps you could ask the authors of other Conan fanfics. Even if they haven't heard of the story you're looking for, they might know of story archives or other places to ask.
posted by reynaert at 7:30 AM on October 23, 2006