Geek Wisdom

Geek Wisdom – The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture is a fun book. It is essentially a load of quotes from movies, books, comics, TV shows and so on, and discusses the meaning behind them. In places, this is done in a philosophical way, in others it offers advice or merely comments on its wisdom. If you are lucky enough in these nerd friendly times to be a bit of a geek, then you will recognize a lot of these sayings. But even if you aren’t, (and happened to be reading a science fiction website by chance,) there is a lot here to titillate and entertain.

For example a page will begin with a quote – like the awesome Conan one when he’s asked about the best things in life and replies: ‘To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women’. There then follows a brief pondering on conquerors such as Napoleon or Alexander the Great and how they lack the empathy that afflicts the rest of us.

Or the classic opening line of Neuromancer by William Gibson. ‘The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel’, followed by a discussion on how technology has so saturated our lives that we barely even notice it anymore – but are we actually better off?

And so on.

Each mini essay is only a page long so it is easy to dip into. I actually suspect that like in my flat this book will sit proudly by the toilet, ready to be dipped into as needed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The range of quotes are impressive – from scifi stuff to inscriptions on lunar modules to Shakespeare to Oppenheimer. What’s more the essays are well written and genuinely witty. If I didn’t already have Nerd Wisdom, I suspect I would have been given it for Christmas. And I would have been happy to have unwrapped it. Highly frackin’ recommended.