Recently in Books Category
posted by laurel on September 2, 2008 12:00 PM in Books, Geek Culture
Think you know everything there is to know about being a geek? Think again, true believers: Much to learn you still have. But fear not! Brian Briggs has pulled together a truly delightful how-to guide to help veteran geeks, would-be geeks, and geek watchers expand their knowledge of this multifaceted and richly detailed culture.
Equal parts survival guide and good-natured spoof, Briggs's BBook of Geek has it all. Have trouble keeping up with the bloggers and their idiosyncratic language? This book can help. Still don't know what LARP stands for? You will. The BBook is broken up into helpful genre-specific sections such as literature, movies, and gaming, the better to help the well-rounded geek find what he or she needs quickly. Also, for your entertainment, there are countless lists on topics such as 'Top 11 Signs You Shouldn't Board That Spacecraft,' and many (surprisingly difficult!) quizzes designed to test your knowledge of your fandom of choice. Is 'Boss Nass' a Star Wars character or a Hip-Hop artist? Is 'Red Tornado' a superhero or a household cleaner? Believe me, it's harder than it looks.
There is a wealth of information here that will surprise and amuse you, but a word of warning: there are tongue-in-cheek 'facts' interspersed among the real truths of geekdom. (Example: "LOLcats can be traced back to ancient Egyptian drawings of cats with hieroglyphics that roughly translate to: 'I can haz pyramidz?'") And let's not forget the hilarious newspaper clippings with titles like "Blizzard Selling LifePacks for Scheduled Downtime in World of Warcraft," and "Thirty-Two Arrested in Poorly Conceptualized LARP."
The only complaint I have about this book is that it left me with an unavoidable sense of how little I truly know about geekdom in general. My own geekiness is confined to a spare few areas that I know way too much about--I'm not what you'd call 'fluent' in Elvish, but I can tell Sindarin from Quenya when I hear it--but my knowledge of gaming and comics is sorely lacking. And to that end, I'm glad that a guide exists to help fill in those gaps, at least a little.
It's a rare person indeed who can convey a genuine affection for and kinship with a given culture at the same time that he's shamelessly harpooning it, but Briggs pulls it off. Even if you have trouble separating the real facts from the clever jibes, chances are you will learn something new, and laugh your head off doing it.
Read More:
geek humor
,
The Ravenous Bibliophage
comments (0) | permalink
posted by laurel on August 26, 2008 9:02 AM in Books
Please welcome the newest addition to the Weekly Geek family, Laurel Fuller. Laurel will be writing The Ravenous Bibliophage - a feature not afraid to tell you what books are crap and why. Enjoy! --Chris
We've all seem them in the window as we walk past Borders or Barnes and Noble. The flat black covers with the striking red-and-white imagery, wrapped around a set of (now) four novels as thick as the later Harry Potters. They are the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer's wildly successful vampire romance aimed at teenagers and whoever else gets the urge to read Young Adult books every now and then. I started reading them because A) I like vampires, and B) I want to write fantasy-horror for a Young Adult audience one day, and I felt like sizing up the competition. The good news is the series is finally, finally over; the bad news is I vaporized a solid two months reading every word.
continue reading "The Ravenous Bibliophage: Stephenie Meyer - Breaking Dawn"
Read More:
Stephenie Meyer
,
The Ravenous Bibliophage
,
Twilight
,
vampires
comments (0) | permalink
posted by Chris on July 7, 2008 8:53 AM in Books
Self-flagellation and guilt are two major personality traits of Geeks. A common thread in our lives is the self-hatred that comes from being told you're different than the other kids - in a bad way. Your glasses or ill-fitting clothes are wrong, your bookish manner of speech unwelcome to other "cooler" kids. We retreat to comfort, to rules and structure in a seemingly chaotic world. Thus is the thesis of Benjamin Nugent's American Nerd: The Story of My People, a book not unlike Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion for its logic and prose. Being a self-proclaimed Alpha Geek, I am always protective of my community. The mainstream view of geeks has classically been a negative one, only recently have we seen the rise of Geek Chic, the ultimate revenge. Our glasses are in style, tight thrift store shirts and beat up clothes are coveted, and our hyper-literate manner of communication welcome to prospective employers. We are, of course, a deeper people than this. We have developed a bond with other Geeks in order to ensure our survival and are protective of the shelter cobbled together with stacks of Monster Manuals and empty jewel cases. We are varied in our interests, tied together by passion alone. Misunderstood passion validated by the niche communities we affiliate ourselves with.
When I saw American Nerd was penned by the same author of Elliot Smith and the Big Nothing, I imagined a sort of Geek ambassador, a man who Knew What He Was Talking About. Elliot Smith being the ultimate Geek, one so tormented by his isolation and obsession with his craft. So misunderstood. His biography sheds insight into his otherwise isolated thoughts, so surely Nugent had the prescient ability to understand geeks, to explain them to the layman. This was a book I wanted so badly to champion. I wanted this to be a manual to understanding nerds that management types could turn to and reference when their software engineers act uncomfortable and reclusive at the company barbecue.
American Nerd excited me immensely when I first started reading it. "He understands!" I would mouth silently to myself on the bus, "He gets it!" I would tell anyone within earshot about how smart it was, how he explained why we act the way we do. I was high on the validation. For the first few chapters, Nugent achieves a Dawkins-like sense of knowing exactly what is in your head, but being more coherent in expressing it. He discusses incredibly interesting and insightful things, like where the word "nerd" comes from, discussing nerds in history and how America's physical education programs were thinly veiled Christian propaganda. He gives anecdotal accounts from his own life of nerdery, along with stories about different groups and subsets of nerds. The LARPers, the Sci-Fi geeks, the D+D nerds, the gamers. Well, the Major League Gaming gamers - the Halo 2 and Super Smash Bros. jocks. Of course being a gamer my ears (eyes?) perked up at my own subset being represented.
Nugent mentions that one major nerd calling card is their obsession with facts that would be deemed unimportant by "normal" standards. Take the pop culture nerd who kicks ass at Jeopardy!, or the Tolkien nerd who wrote their college thesis in Sindarin. Nugent knows these nerds pick through data looking for faults, and still there was a moment in the book when my faith in him as a writer was questioned. I was so enthusiastic about American Nerd up until he got a fact wrong. In the section about gaming, he talks about an MLG Smash Bros team called "Husband and Wife" because they play as Princess Peach and Prince, Peach's husband in the game. This error was compounded for a few different reasons.
- Super Smash Bros is a massively popular game, selling millions of copies. Getting a character name wrong when you are writing a definitive book on the subject of nerds is just asking for trouble.
- Princess Peach is not only a character in Smash Bros, but a billion other Nintendo-themed properties including the most persistent of all properties: Super Mario.
- Peach isn't married, and even if she was, wouldn't she be married to Mario?
- Who the fuck is Prince?
For a self-ascribed Nerd, that is a fairly fundamental fuck up. Didn't he have an editor? Wasn't there someone along the chain of Definitive Nerd Manual Construction do some fact-checking into this? Nugent then proceeded to lead his book directly down the steepest cliff he could find by ending without answering his thesis. By the end of American Nerd you realize Nugent is just talking to himself. He brings up subsets of nerdery and then leaves you hanging, wondering what his point is. While perhaps you could extrapolate your own answers as you glimpse through the tiny windows of this geek culture, any and all credibility is tossed out said windows in the last chapter, where Nugent discusses how he gave up being a nerd. As a teenager.
Wait, if you are writing a book about "Your People", shouldn't you be one of those people? As he leads you into this story of handing his Super Nintendo and collection of games off to a friend and leaving him in the dust, you realize Nugent is really just absolving himself of guilt. It's all about Kenneth, the kid with the bad family life who Nugent feels guilty leaving in his time of need. Kenneth was a dead weight on Nugent's leg, or so he felt at the time. I feel like he's written this book as a sort of dedication to his former friend; a pre-mid-life contemplative look back into his childhood. I would find this bittersweet and poignant if I wasn't led to believe he was an expert on the subject. Didn't he say in the foreword that he was "a little biased", being a nerd himself? But... he's not a nerd after all?
As I read the last few pages and shut the book, I stared out the window of the bus as it puttered through rush hour traffic. As I contemplated this abrupt end and ultimately egocentric diatribe, I couldn't help but feel like Kenneth: abandoned by someone who I thought understood me.
[American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent - buy it on Amazon]
Read More:
nerdery
,
nerds
comments (2) | permalink
posted by Qais on December 29, 2007 9:21 AM in Books, Geek Culture
We're starting a new feature here at The Weekly Geek called Books That I Have. Every week we will profile a strange, funny, interesting or otherwise rare book that we have in our home libraries.
Geeks are a strange breed, and most, though not all, have had occasion to deal with one group or another of drooling mongoloids seemingly bent on doing nothing but making said geek's life miserable. Imagine now, that the tables have turned, and that the power is in the hands of the geek. Not 15 or 20 years later like we all know is likely, but now, armed only with the skill most adolescent geeks have on hand; a near encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction, video games, aliens, monsters, robots, dinosaurs, and everything else that loner kids with more imagination than inclination to socialize find interesting.
Charon's Ark features just such a geek; Charlie Freeman, who, when he and some schoolmates are kidnapped by aliens destined for the moon of Pluto, is finally able to put to use the hours spent absorbing fantastic tales of space aliens and starship travel. It's an adolescent geek's dream! Finally, the outcasts are running the show, and much like you'd imagine a beaten man to do when facing down his brutalizers, the show run is rife with petty revenge.
But that's the best thing about Charon's Ark; every character is believable, human, people you interact with, people some of you are. It's easy to see parts of ourselves in the characters author Rick Gauger expertly plays out across the pages of Charon's Ark, easier still to rejoice with their triumphs, feel the crush of their follies, and let the hair on the back of your neck stand in fear with their danger. We are the characters, and Rick reminds us that, regardless of the labels we apply to ourselves and have applied to us by others, none of us is all one thing or the other.
Yes, most of the characters are kids, teenagers even. Hell the book itself is often classified as "Young Adult", but don't allow yourself to be fooled. Much like the characters are all themselves realistic and human, they are all also realistically dealt with. The kids at times are near totally sociopathic monsters, as kids occasionally are, and Rick attempts no illusion regarding the horrible things that can happen in extreme situations with a gaggle of panicked, unruly kids about. The book is at times incredibly grim, unlike other SF aimed at adolescents which hopes to paint a picture of a world in which real bad things only happen to people over 18, and as such honest and straightforward with it's intended audience.
Sadly, I didn't discover Charon's Ark until much later in life, which while not hampering my enjoyment of it in the least did leave me wishing I had found this book when I was Charlie Freeman; young, awkward, and with a head full of aliens, monsters, robots and dinosaurs. My head is still full of robots and dinosaurs, but the visceral feeling of being the shunned embarrassment of my peers has long since passed (mostly). The geeks of the world thank you Rick, for the paperback arm around the shoulder in youth, the epic tale of spacenapped kids, but most importantly, for the reiteration that an imagination is the most important tool you will ever have. Every kid that has ever felt misunderstood, alone, weird, left out, alien or otherwise ostracized should own a copy of this book, and you should too.
Read More:
books
,
Charon's Ark
,
Sci Fi
comments (4) | permalink
posted by Chris on December 14, 2007 12:00 PM in Books
We're starting a new feature here at The Weekly Geek called Books That I Have. Every week we will profile a strange, funny, interesting or otherwise rare book that we have in our home libraries. I have a ridiculous amount of coolness to share with you, so I hope you enjoy it!
Just about every Sunday morning my girlfriend and I head to Glo's diner in Seattle for their fantastic breakfast and horrible service (but it seriously is fantastic. Seriously.) and make a trip to Half Price Books. This has turned up a few gems in the past couple weeks such as this fantastic find, Knights of the Road: A Hobo History by Roger A. Bruns, published in 1980. I have a strange affinity toward the use of the word "hobo" in everyday conversation, and tend to be fascinated by their history. I really enjoyed reading John Hodgeman's Areas of My Expertise in which he goes into elaborate detail of hobo history. I figured most of it was John's normal brand of carefully crafted bullshit, but once I started flipping through Knights of the Road I was stunned. Knights of the Road reads like a parody, a proto-Hodgeman piece that is equal parts ridiculous and strange. But no! This is a factual book made by an actual non-humor author who actually researched stuff like hobo kings and queens, and presidential scissor-sharpeners. That's right, presidential scissor-sharpeners.
How can you not love a book that has pictures of a man called "Steam Train Maury"? The hobo is a fascinating person, thought to be on the verge of extinction. Today's crusties only pale in comparison to the daring itinerant workers of the early 20th century. Train hopping, clever nicknames, hobo jungle feasts and more paint a very stark picture of a world completely foreign to most people. Maybe that's why I am so fascinated with hoboes, they live on the fringes of society and are content in eking out a living wherever they roam.
Certainly a lot of this romantic idea of wanderlust I would assume is fueled by the hoboes' penchant for mental instability (can you have a penchant for mental instability? I bet if anyone, a hobo could!) But it is eternally fascinating to see people who claim to be umbrella repairmen, who claim to have sharpened every president's scissors except Nixon, who claim to have shacked up with actresses and European royalty. Maybe it's all true, maybe it's a moonshine-induced delusion, but either way it's an incredibly compelling story.
Read More:
Books That I Have
,
hoboes
comments (0) | permalink
posted by Chris on October 31, 2006 12:34 PM in Books
It's been 12 years since the release Scott McCloud's eye-opening bible on sequential art, Understanding Comics, and 6 since his follow up, Reinventing Comics. Since its release, Understanding Comics had achieved much acclaim for helping bring understanding to the comic world. Not so much for people who are already creating comics, but more as an argument for comics as an art form, directed towards people maybe unfamiliar with the subject. McCloud was able to put into simple terms how comics work, why they work, and why they should be regarded as more than just kiddy funny papers. He writes in a style instantly relatable to people, he is an explainer in the highest sense of the word. The ultimate teacher. In Making Comics, McCloud is able to express exactly what you need to know in order to make a comic work. Hit the jump for my full review, and to find out why not only is this an essential book for any aspiring (or currently successful) comic artist's collection, but an essential book for the art form as a whole.
continue reading "Book Review: Making Comics by Scott McCloud"
Read More:
making comics
,
meaty tome
,
scott mccloud
comments (0) | permalink
posted by Amy on September 26, 2006 12:04 PM in Books
Matthew Lesko, in his question mark suit, is a television commercial staple. He’s good at grabbing your attention and making you wonder if his book really could help. After seeing his latest commercial, I decided to find out.
Free Money to Pay Your Bills is well organized and, although a couple of the programs show up more than once as they fit under multiple categories, there are hundreds of programs listed. The book gives a heading, such as “Emergency Rent Money”, and then presents the contact information of all the organizations that offer that type of program.
Even though I do not qualify for most of the programs listed, I did find a couple. If you are a low income family or individual, take care of an elderly parent, have children or are pregnant, have a disability, or are a veteran, this book has plenty of programs that may help pay your bills. If you do not fall under any of these categories you might find one or two. Check the book out from your local library or peruse it in your local book store. What can it hurt to look?
Read More:
bills
,
free money
,
lesko
,
matthew lesko
comments (4) | permalink
posted by Amy on September 19, 2006 11:43 AM in Books
Sybel is the daughter of a powerful, hermit wizard. She grows up learning how to call and take care of legendary animals. When her father dies, Sybel is left with only the menagerie for company. One day, a man shows up at her door with a baby boy in his arms. He tells her the child is her cousin and she is the only one who can keep him safe. She reluctantly takes the child and raises him as her own. Sybel’s life is never again the same. She soon learns to love, to hate, and to forgive.
For the last decade The Forgotten Beasts of Eld has been one of those books that I kept meaning to read but never did. I rarely read a book with expectations, but I guess I was expecting more from this book since Patricia A. McKillip wrote one of my favorite fantasy trilogies, The Riddle-Master. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is a nice story but it lacks a sense of depth. It comes across more as the telling of a legend or story than a novel. It would be a good book to have read to you but the solo reader might find it lacking. I did enjoy the book once I adjusted my expectations.
For those of us who play World of Warcraft, or are familiar with the Warcraft universe, I did find one interesting tidbit. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld mentions “the black marshes of Fyrbolg” on the very first page. In Warcraft the Furbolgs are a race of bear-like humanoids. I did a Google search and did not find any correlation between Fyrbolg and Furbolg but I did discover the Fir Bolg, an ancient race in Irish mythology. I feel it’s too much of a coincidence for Fyrbolg or Fir Bolg not to be the namesake of Furbolg, but I wonder which one it is. Isn’t knowledge fun?
For more information about Patricia A. McKillip and her books visit http://www.patriciamckillip.com/.
Find this book in the Weekly Geek's Amazon Store.
Read More:
fir bolg
,
forgotten beasts of eld
,
furbolg
,
fyrbolg
,
patricia a. mckillip
,
sybel
,
World of Warcraft
comments (1) | permalink
posted by Amy on September 12, 2006 2:21 PM in Books
The Tortall Universe currently consists of fourteen books with at least five more planned over the next few years. Created by Tamora Pierce, it is one of the best and hardest to put down series I have ever read. First published in 1983 and still going strong, the Tortall Universe appeals to all ages. Don’t let the fact the books are considered Young Adult fiction discourage you from checking them out. The characters are very well developed and have more depth than most adult fiction I have read. The series is written so that you don’t have to read the earlier books to enjoy the later ones but I highly recommend reading them in order.
I first read the Song of the Lioness quartet the summer after my seventh grade year. Up until that point I had read very little of the fantasy genre, but the story of Alanna hooked me like no other. Alanna of Trebond is a strong, young girl with a magical healing Gift who disguises herself as her twin brother so she can study to become a Knight of Tortall. Anyone familiar with the game characters I play would recognize how these first books influenced me.
After signing up with my local library, I decided to check out the other novels of Tortall. Next in the series, the Immortals quartet tells the story of Veralidaine Sarrasri, a Wildmage who can talk to animals. Orphaned when her family is killed by raiders, Daine heads west to the kingdom of Tortall where she learns to control her magic and proves invaluable in the war against the immortals.
continue reading "Book Review: The Tortall Universe"
Read More:
daughter of the lioness
,
immortals
,
song of the lioness
,
tamora pierce
,
tortall
comments (0) | permalink
