Jenny Everywhere and the Eye of Argon (novel)
Jenny Everywhere and the Eye of Argon was a short Jenny Everywhere multi-chapter released on April Fools' Day by Scott Sanford in 2022. It was an unlicensed, parodical crossover with the world of The Eye of Argon, an infamous “bad” fantasy novel. The writing of the chapters set in Ecord emulated the style of the original, complete with typos and awkward syntax, which was addressed in-story.
Contents
Plot
Chapter 1: Earth: Out of Toast
While trying to make bread, Jenny notices that she and Kim appear to have run out of sourdough. After Kim reminds her of the excellent bread she brought back from Mars in another universe, and she realises she still has some money from there, she decides to go back there. On the spot, she leaves Kim with a “Back in a few minutes!” and shifts away.
Chapter 2: Ecord: A New World
Jenny finds herself on a path bordered by “plush vegetation” and realises she is in an entirely other world than she intended. As she voices this, she also realises that her words are being corrupted, and that this world is one of those which not only have their own laws of physics, but also exert a narrative influence on their inhabitants, drawing them to live out certain types of stories. This is visibly a somewhat clichéd sword-and-sorcery world, as evidenced by Jenny's outfit, which has transformed into a revealing leather bikini complete with a chainmail scarf and a sword.
She is attacked by a giant, monstrous rat but easily dispatches it with her sword. She is confronted with a muscular barbarian on a horse, who introduces himself as the warrior Tyse, who has been chasing the rat. He further explains that it is one of the “giant rats of Argon” which, as a “protector” of this world of Ecord, he is sworn to hunt down and destroy. They are, he explains, ordinary rats which have been transformed into monsters by the malevolent Shamen of Argon, and they are infesting the land in “great numbers”. Introducing herself to Tyse, she agrees to help hunt them down, and they ride off, exchanging flirtatious
Chapter 2 ½: Eccord: Dalliance
Jenny and Tyse continue discussing the world of Ecord and the malevolent magical threats they will face. Their discussion grows increasingly flirtatious and laden with double entendres, and they ultimately take a detour by a river-bank where they dismount for a brief “dalliance”.
Chapter 3: Eckord: Temple Attack
Having returned to the matter at hand, Jenny and Tyse find themselves at the gates of the Temple of Argon. Ignoring a sign reading ‘DO NOT ENTER’, they enter, making their way up a long spiraling staircase to somehow exit in an “airy courtyard” before they briefly stop to consider a mural depicting the deity Argon himself.
They soon reach a circular hall with a deep bit in the centre, filled with cages containing eldritch creatures — and occupied by “a handful of long-robed Shamen” who instantly notice them. The High Priest, told apart from the lesser Shamen by his shaved head and the large jeweled necklace he wears, orders his minions to stop the intruders. The other Shamen free the giant rats from their cages; although it quickly becomes clear that Jenny and Tyse are easily fighting them off, the High Priest intends for them to merely act as distractions while he summons “an unstoppable creature from the stygian bowels of the lower Hells!”.
Soon an eldritch creature, to which the High Priest refers as the Spawn of Fashan, begins to rise from the pit, lashing out at Jenny and Tyse with its tentacles. While Tyse sends the lesser wizards packing, Jenny attempts to force the High Priest to banish the abomination again, but he states that this can't be done before fleeing. Jenny is captured by one of the tentacles and dragged into the pit, looking into the true face of the Spawn, with a round mouth ringed by five eyes. However, she draws her sword in the nick of time and stabs the Spawn in the biggest of its five eyes, killing it. As it dies, the whole world goes dark around Jenny as she involuntarily shifts again.
Chapter 4: Earth: Home Again
Jenny materialises back in her home universe in front of Kim, still dressed as a barbarian warrior and holding her sword.
Worldbuilding
Jenny Everywhere
- This story stars the “default” Jenny of Scott Sanford's Jenny Everywhere stories.
- She finds herself changing outfits when she shifts to Ecord, emerging dressed in a “leather bikini”, plus a chainmail scarf and high-laced sandals. She remains in this outfit after shifting home, suggesting this is, in this instance an effect of Ecord's peculiar nature, rather than an aspect of Jenny's shifting powers.
Laura Drake
Universes
- The story opens and closes in this Jenny's home universe.
- The month before, Jenny visited a universe where “genetically engineered hyper-something” (either the yeast or the grain) allowed the creation of a special Martian bread which Kim agrees “smelled amazing”. She also brought home some currency from that world, appearing as “a handful of bills in shocking pastel colors”. Its Mars had “crystal pillars by the edge of an empty sea”.
- Jenny reflects on how some universe “could distort probability or logic, tilting the whole world toward or away from particular behaviours, even entire stories”, and recalls having “visited a few” before Ecord, the story's main setting, a clichéd fantasy universe (whose name is intentionally misspelled in several ways including Eccord and Eckord).
Other
- Tyse is described as a Barbarian; he has red hair, and wears a loin-cloth and “iron spiraled helm”.
- Kim describes Jenny's outfit as something out of “a Boris Vallejo painting”. For her part, Jenny remarks that she hasn't “worn this little in public since the last time [she] met the Puritan Streaker”.
- Jenny daydreams about someday making her way to Barsoom, musing on what the night life in Helium might be like. Therns are mentioned.
Behind the scenes
Background
Scott Sanford appended an Afterword, comically rendered as Afterward to fit the misspellings:
| Anyone unfamiliar with The Eye of Argon probably bailed out early; for the rest of you, I hope you enjoyed the effort. This struck me as a fine tale for April Fools’ Day. It was more effort than a normal story of this length would be because, wow, it’s hard to write like this. Also, I kept giggling and chortling the whole time, meaning I had to do it in private and making writing inefficient. And I don’t know what the problem is with the vocabulary; these are all perfectly cromulent words, right? It’s interesting that Jenny noticed the bizarre features of that universe right away. How was she subjectively perceiving the misspellings and grammatical horrors of the land of Ecord, as a fictional character within it? How close do you think Jenny was to the fourth wall then? Valid questions, to be sure. Don’t ask me for hard answers, I just write this stuff… For that matter, how much of her behavior was influenced by the world? Jenny noticed her speech changing; it’s reasonable to think she’d act differently in a less constricted universe. It seems difficult for that world to contain stories that aren’t cheesy sword and sorcery tales. The thud and blunder genre is clearly a universe feature here; plausibility and character development are optional. The character of Tyse is named for Jim Theis, who grew up to be a much more capable – and articulate – adult than his unedited teenage fiction would suggest. And yes, I called a horrible monster the Spawn of Fashan; I went there. What do you think the Puritan Streaker’s deal is, by the way? My guess is that he lives on a nudist world and has some objection to people who go around gratuitously wearing clothes. I’m sure Paul Hoppe could have fun with the Puritan Streaker. (Jay Epps might already be sketching character designs.) If any of you have ideas for this, feel free to grab the inspiration and run with it! |
| —Scott Sanford |
Read online
The story is available on the author's website.
