Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

As a 39-year-old geek, I am not this book's target audience, which is teenage geeks. But I have been a teenage geek, and really enjoyed this collection of short fiction written about, for, and by nerds, geeks, and dweebs. Fun.

This is an amazing collection of fiction with everything from sci-fi conventions, to cheerleaders, to star gazing and prep schools. Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci came up with the idea for the first story in this collection in 2007 at Comic-Con in San Diego. The story would be a nerd love story - a Jedi and a Klingon wake up in bed at a Science Fiction convention together not remembering exactly what happened. They realize that their preferred alternate realities, theologies and practices are diametrically opposed, and yet they find they like each other. But soon upon having the idea for the story they realized nobody would publish it, so they went to their geek friends far and wide and asked them to contribute to a collection, and what an amazing collection it is. To be honest, I picked it up because Holly Black was one of the editors and I generally really appreciate and enjoy her work. And yet it surpassed all my expectations; I plan on tracking down works from a number of contributors and reading them from the pieces found in this collection. Their work will be great. The contributors are: Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci Tracy Lynn Scott Westerfeld Cassandra Clare M.T. Anderson Cynthia Leitich Smith and Greg Leitich Smith David Levithan Garth Nix Lisa Yee Kelly Link John Green Barry Lyga Sara Zarr Wendy Mass Libba Bray And between each short story is a comic, illustrated either by Bryan Lee O'Malley or Hope Larson. The back of the dust jacket gives definitions of both geek and geektastic. They are: Geek \gek\ n: 1. A person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked 2. A person who is so passionate about a given subject or subjects as to occasionally cause annoyance among others geek-tas-tic \ gek-tas-tic\ adj: marked by fantastic geek qualities; a compliment of the highest regard Number 1. From geek might be is a real definition. This book will help make the others so as well. For geek is the new chic. To be a geek is now cool and this collection has something for every flavor of geek: Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Comics, and much, much more. I was surprised that I enjoyed every story in the collection. Usually with anthologies, a few stories stick out as great, a few suck and a few are ok. I actually appreciate the art of each piece in the collection. That speaks much about the editors but also the authors that contributed. Reading this collection brought back memories of high school, Queen's University and my time here at UWaterloo. Just as a side note, the images on the covers are representations of our contributors, and there are a few different versions of the covers because the figures are not always in the same order. Each represents the story they told or the characters in those stories. It's geeky but fun to link them together as you work through the book. And as a second aside, I would love to see an audio book come out either as dramatized or each author reading their piece. Knowing I will not do them justice, I w

My question is this: How can you not want to read this book? Even if your interest in (any) fandom is casual to the point of 'I kind of remember that blond chick with a pointy stick' this book will have you in stitches, tears or ready to be a more active member of some wonderful community. Whether you are a Trekkie (or is it Trekker now?), Star Wars fan, Whedonite, Otaku or a more obscure fandom (Blake's 7? Does anyone remember that show?) you'll enjoy this book. It's not perfect, I sometimes wondered if some of the stories rely too heavily on some prior knowledge of the geeky topic at hand or took some of the examples to extremes (though to be fair I knew a guy who literally grew up Klingon. It was the first language he learned--yes before English--started 'developing' forehead ridges around the age of five and who's parents left him out in the wilderness at the age of 13 for a month in the summer for his 'Rite of Passage' ceremony--since beating him with sticks is considered illegal of course. By the time he was twenty-one, you'd be hard-pressed to know that he was human underneath all the make-up, Klingon cursing and bloodwine guzzling), but the book made me feel less odd. I grew up in a school where sports were #1, academics #2 and theater #3. Geeky things like Star Trek or D & D or comic books came in distant distant last place. Golf was considered cooler then Star Trek or comic book reading. The rare few who were part of the 'Nerd Herd' with me did so in severe secrecy--our school's QB for my 9th and 10th grade years would trade X-Men cards with me under the pretense of me tutoring him in english. The leading 'brain' of the school played Q-Bert down at the shore (a good hour and half away from us) twice a week--far away from anyone who would know him. I was out in the open about my interests, mostly because I had long since given up caring about my image. I got teased, taunted, ridiculed and scorned at (and these were my friends), but I couldn't help that I couldn't fake interest in how badly our school's football team sucked (it was pretty bad). Some of the stories were simply hilarious, some were moving and some took itself as seriously as a Jedi Master takes going to the dark side. As to be expected of a Compendium of Geekness, pop culture references abound. Subtle (Mr. Pointy for example), not so subtle (pretty much elvish or Klingon word uttered throughout) and the convention oriented (Jedis vs. Klingons vs. Stormtroopers vs. Peacekeepers vs. Cylons....with some Starfleet Cadets/Officers thrown in for good measure). For anyone who has ever been to a major (or even small) convention you'll probably appreciate the humor behind Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci's story about cosplayers who take things to the extreme, gamers will definitely fall in line with Scott Westerfield's story and Tracy Lynn's story about a cheerleader trying to learn Geek is wonderful. It hits all the fandoms, all the stereotypes and then presents them differen

I will not lie. I am a total geek. I have admitted this many times and I will not be ashamed. I am a Star Wars nerd, I watch Lord of the Rings marathons, I read the entire Harry Potter series at least once a year, I know everything about James Bond. The only geeky thing I'm not really into is Star Trek, but I will admit to watching the newest one and really enjoying it. That said, this book was PERFECT for me. It's pretty much the story of my life. What I really love about this book is that I can totally relate to many of the stories. Even greater is the number of stories that feature girls as being totally into the geek culture. Too often the stereotype is that only nerdy guys who have no friends are geeks, but this book shows that girls, cool girls can be geeks and enjoy it. Of course there are also many stories that show how the "in crowd" shuns the geeks and the hardships that goes from feeling as you are a freak for the things you like. Many of the stories are painful to read because of the treatment received from others. However, there are still others that show it doesn't matter what others think as long as you enjoy what you do. I really loved the comic strips that were featured in between the stories. These were laugh out loud hilarious in their portrayal of the different types of geekdom. I wish there was a whole book on just these comics alone. I did like some stories better than others. There were a few that I really just could not get into. I'm not sure if it was because I was unaware of the background of the story or because I was unfamiliar with the author's style of writing. Also some stories featured a bit more sex and language than I would have liked to read. That being said, there's something for everyone in this book. Even if you have no idea what a Wookie is or can't speak a lick of Klingon, you'll still enjoy the multitude of talent from the authors who contributed to the book.

Reviewed by Avni Gupta (age 15) for Reader Views 9/09) When I received "Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd," I was really looking forward to reading it. When I found out that it was an anthology, I was even more excited! You see, I'm a nerd and I love reading stories about nerds like me! As soon as I started reading, I was hooked. This collection of stories commenced with an amazing story about Jedis and Klingons - well, actually, people dressed up as them for a star wars/star trek convention. I have a confession to make; I had no idea what either of those two things was so I did a little research. A Jedi is a member of the peacekeeping force called the Jedi. They use the light side of the force and abhor the dark side. One important thing to remember about the Jedi is that they are from Star Wars. Klingons are an alien warrior race that is from Star Trek. Make sure you remember that one is from Star Wars and one is from Star Trek. Anyway, back to the story. So the Jedi and the Klingon have a one night stand. In the morning their one night stand love (if that term makes no sense to you, think of it as their... chemistry) is tested because they are from different worlds. Will their... love last? This book was so amazing! I seriously could not put it down. Even though it was comprised of many short stories, somehow they all fit together perfectly and made the finished product into something amazing! I feel like this book could be read by a number of people from every walk of life. My college-aged brother read it and he loved it while my sixth-grade neighbor also enjoyed it. I feel as though this book would make a great present for anyone and everyone whom you are looking for a present for. Also, if you see this "Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd," in a bookstore, you should most definitely get it. You will not be disappointed by the amazing short stories that have been written by these wonderful authors and compiled into this outstanding novel. Go ahead and indulge in this gripping tale about those of us who are geeks and nerds.