Geektastic : stories from the nerd herd (edition 2010)

As in many multi-authored collections some contributions are stronger than others, but as a whole this was definitely worth picking up, and I found some new authors who I want to read more of. ( )

I liked pretty much every story in here except the one by Libby Bray. To be clear -- Bray's writing wasn't bad, it was just really depressing. I generally try to avoid reading depressing books. I don't know, just something about why I read -- I read to learn or escape. And that final short story, beyond being horribly depressing, ended the (otherwise extremely cool, funny and interesting) anthology on a real down note. I have a sick hurt in my gut now, and my eyes feel all stingy. I'm weirdly depressed.

Like I said, well-written. But dang, the last story was depressing. ( )

It probably says more about me than about the book that the first, most important thing I need to say about it is that John Green, in his story 'Freak the Geek' got his facts about Aragorn and Arwen from LotR wrong. The story of their wedding is not told in the appendix, but rather in the final book. The story of their lives together is what's told in the appendix. Also, it's spelled orc, not ork. Ahem.

Now that I've qualified myself as one of the herd this book was aimed at, let me tell you how much I enjoyed it, nitpicking aside. There are some real stand-out stories here and only a few clunkers. M.T. Anderson's tale is perhaps the most nuanced, while Libba Bray's resonated with my own personal adolescence. David Leviathan's offering was poignant and sweet- just like his books. My favorite story, though, was the very first one, by Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci, which made me whoop with laughter. Highly recommended for the crowd I used to stand around awkwardly with. Running is for jocks, man.

( )

There are a few stories I enjoyed in this, including the one co-written by Holly Black. Most of the rest, are so-so. Whether you like this book really depends on your various fandoms. As a pop culture fanatic, anything with Buffy, Doctor Who, Star Trek, or Star Wars mentioned at one point, caught my eye. None of the gaming stories really worked for me. ( )

This book is GREAT in concept. The problem is that there are 4000 different types of nerds. So while I LOVE Star Trek, Star Wars, Comic-Con, Buffy, Firefly, and select other nerdy things.... I'm not the most well-versed nerd of all time, you know? I don't know anything about Dungeons & Dragons, Babylon 5, Warcraft, or a multitude other nerdy things. So I really think this is the type of book you pick up, read the stories you "get", and then return to the library. It just doesn't make sense to read it all the way through, unless you're Leonard or Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, who would get all of the stories...