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See, now this is what Fanboys wanted to be.
The debut novel (or novella, as somewhat grumpily conceded in the Author’s Note) from AlertNerd’s Matt Springer, Unconventional is, according to the front cover’s helpful summary, “a tale of sex, booze, and geeks”…pretty much in that order. And as unappealing as a book filled with drunk, naked nerds might seem, Springer makes it work, thanks to his effortlessly conversational writing and a plot that actually has less to do with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings than it lets on.
The story follows a sci-fi-loving trio of longtime friends (Marty, Ron, and Ham — a nickname, short for Hammerhead, as in the minor Star Wars character) on their adventures through one weekend at the UnConvention, “Chicagoland’s number one sci-fi con,” working in plenty of basement-dwelling misfits in Jedi costumes while building toward a few life-changing decisions for the main characters. It’s a framework you’re probably overly familiar with — as you’ll be with Unconventional’s habit of flashing back and forth between past and present in order to give the reader additional context — and pop metaculture has been drowning in geek heroes for years. At a fundamental level, the book is utterly ordinary, and it shouldn’t work as well as it does — but unlike most writers who dabble in geekdom, Springer actually has something to say, and instead of just presenting his characters as empty vessels for Klingon jokes, he uses them to deliver some trenchant, poignant messages about making the awkward transition into adulthood, and the nature of fandom in general. (more…)
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When it comes to telling the true story of Woodstock, more properly known as “An Aquarian Exposition: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair,” it’s hard to imagine anyone better suited for the role than Michael Lang. Now, 40 years after the world-changing event and right on time for the various activities celebrating the anniversary, the man who conceived the festival has decided to tell his story in 
Travis Elborough – The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again (2009, Soft Skull)
Robb Walsh – Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover’s World Tour (2009, Counterpoint)
John Carroll – The Existential Jesus (2009, Counterpoint)
My World History teacher in high school, Mrs. Rivers, was less than efficient in her use of verbiage. While lecturing about the Peloponnesian Wars or the Roman aqueducts, she would adorn her stories with so many verbal-tic qualifiers – “if you will,” “shall we say,” “I say to you” – that a pair of dorks in the back of the classroom invented a game they called “Shall-We-Say Baseball” to pass the time. (I don’t remember which rarely used phrase prompted a home run, but I do remember the whispered cheers that emanated from their table whenever one was scored.) Anyway, Mrs. Rivers spent so much time on her qualifiers that she arrived at school one day in February and realized she was still talking about the sacking of Rome by the Huns. So she announced that morning that, following our unit test, we would be skipping ahead to World War I in order to hit the key points in the standard curriculum.