Geektastic!
Aug. 25th, 2009 23:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyGeektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd. Holly Black & Cecil Castellucci, eds. New York: Little, Brown, & Co., 2009.
Just a quick note to say that this book is made of awesome. It contains new stories by a range of awesome authors, including Garth Nix, Kelly Link, and Scott Westerfeld (to say nothing of people like M.T. Anderson and Libba Bray)--and probably best of all, it includes comics illustrated by Brian Lee O'Malley, of Scott Pilgrim fame, and Hope Larson. The cover even has 8-bit avatars of each of the contributors (as well as a few random vampires, superheroes, protagonists, and knights). My favorite stories were probably Kelly Link's "Secret Identity"--have I mentioned how much I love Kelly Link? good god she is amazing (you can check out Magic for Beginners for free here, see for yourself!)--and Lisa Yee's "Everyone But You," as well as Tracy Lynn's "One of Us."
So yes, these stories are about geeks of all kinds--science geeks, sff geeks, gamer geeks, band geeks, twirling geeks, Rocky Horror Picture Show geeks. My only complaint would be that most of the stories seem to take place in that ambiguously whitewashed zone that is, well, not representative--Lisa Yee (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lisayee) would be the major exception to this rule, since her story deals with a white band geek moving to Hawai'i. Also, the copy editor was clearly not a geek ("Jadazia Dax"? "World Con"? come on now). But! It is still an awesome book, particularly for those of us who know that we are geeks, and can laugh at ourselves.
Just a quick note to say that this book is made of awesome. It contains new stories by a range of awesome authors, including Garth Nix, Kelly Link, and Scott Westerfeld (to say nothing of people like M.T. Anderson and Libba Bray)--and probably best of all, it includes comics illustrated by Brian Lee O'Malley, of Scott Pilgrim fame, and Hope Larson. The cover even has 8-bit avatars of each of the contributors (as well as a few random vampires, superheroes, protagonists, and knights). My favorite stories were probably Kelly Link's "Secret Identity"--have I mentioned how much I love Kelly Link? good god she is amazing (you can check out Magic for Beginners for free here, see for yourself!)--and Lisa Yee's "Everyone But You," as well as Tracy Lynn's "One of Us."
So yes, these stories are about geeks of all kinds--science geeks, sff geeks, gamer geeks, band geeks, twirling geeks, Rocky Horror Picture Show geeks. My only complaint would be that most of the stories seem to take place in that ambiguously whitewashed zone that is, well, not representative--Lisa Yee (
lisayee) would be the major exception to this rule, since her story deals with a white band geek moving to Hawai'i. Also, the copy editor was clearly not a geek ("Jadazia Dax"? "World Con"? come on now). But! It is still an awesome book, particularly for those of us who know that we are geeks, and can laugh at ourselves.