{"id":2308,"date":"2014-04-21T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T06:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steamtrainsandghosts.wordpress.com\/?p=2308"},"modified":"2014-04-21T00:01:19","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T06:01:19","slug":"a-note-on-the-norgolian-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steamtrainsandghosts.com\/?p=2308","title":{"rendered":"A note on the Norgolian Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to admit something. The name of the Norgolian Empire, the home of the characters of Cannon Fodder<\/em>, isn\u2019t original by me. I lifted it from \u201cThe Eye of Argon,\u201d a remarkable short story by Jim Theis.<\/p>\n

Now in the public domain, the short story was first published in 1970 in OSFAN, a fanzine. It\u2019s \u2026 well, it\u2019s more or less Conan the Barbarian<\/em> fanfic, but that doesn\u2019t do it justice. I first ran into the story at a party game at Science Fiction and Fantasy club back in college. We\u2019d printed out copies of the story and handed them out to the participants. The object of the game was to read an entire page of the story out loud, pronouncing all the spelling errors, and keep a straight face. I\u2019m pretty sure nobody won that night.<\/p>\n

You have to see this story to believe it.<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read godawful writing before, but \u201cThe Eye of Argon\u201d manages to transcend godawfulness and become a kind of work of art. I wanted to celebrate this story by throwing the name of the Norgolian Empire into Cannon Fodder<\/em>. Theis\u2019s short story is about the Empire\u2019s outer reaches, so who knows what might be going on at the capitol? Hence the setting for Cannon Fodder<\/em>. I like to think that at the time of Alec\u2019s kraken problems, Grignr is still out there somewhere, hacking away at other barbarians.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"