Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci


How irresistible is this concept?

AND it's edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci. The only thing that could have possibly made this book more appealing to me is if it came with a gooey chocolate center.

Alas, inside are 15 short stories and a smattering of comics by the super Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley. (Bryan's illustrations were not included in this ARC. Boo!) The authors comprise a swoon-worthy list of YA litdom rock stars: Westerfeld, Nix, Green, Bray, Zarr*, Anderson, Levithan... you know who they are you YA lit geek. It's a love-letter to fans celebrating the glorious nerd in all of us.

All kinds of geek- and nerddom is explored here. I was pleasantly surprised with the breadth of topics: Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy, academic teams, astronomy, high school spirit!, dinosaurs, online gaming, LARP (live-action role-playing).

On the whole, it's a good collection with just a couple stories that didn't work for me. My stand-out favorites, in no particular order, are Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith's "The Wrath of Dawn", M.T. Anderson's "The King of Pelinesse", John Green's "Freak the Geek", Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci's "Once You're a Jedi, You're a Jedi All the Way", and "The Quiet Knight" by Garth Nix.

I'd also like to give props to David Levithan for mentioning my hometown of Clearwater, FL.

Biographies of the authors also list their (substantial) geek credits. Also check out the very tiny print on the back cover regarding the definition of "geek".

Pub date August 2009, Little, Brown


Reviewed: Reading Rants


*Sara Zarr's story was not included in the ARC.

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