Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

When Nymeth reviewed this short story collection, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelucci, I was so intrigued that I immediately went on Amazon and ordered it. Now, I never do this, because I have such a long list of books to buy that the latest interesting one I hear about just gets added to the bottom of the list. Then when the book arrived I did another unthinkable thing - I actually started reading it straight away! No being put on the TBR shelf, no being added to a challenge of some kind, no forgetting about it.

I'm glad I read it straight away, because I loved it. Geeks rule. Smart people rock. All these stories had such fantastic characters that made me want to re-write my own high school past and wish I'd been a proper geek. But alas, I was too busy trying to fit in and only came into my geekness later in life. It's still considered uncool. :-)

Geektastic has Trekkies, comic book geeks, literature geeks, gaming geeks and two of my favorite sorts - Buffy geeks and science geeks. I'm a total Buffy geek and kind of a science geek myself so those I can relate to. I also felt some connection with the gaming geeks, even though I've never played any of these alternate reality or fantasy games. I've been dying to try World of Warcraft, but I get addicted to these things so fast and I don't want to be addicted so... I haven't tried it.

Anyway. If you're a geek of any kind, you must read this story collection, I'm sure you'll find yourself in it somewhere. Not to mention that you'll discover some great authors - I know that quite a few of the authors included are going straight onto my wishlist. Sigh.

Challenges: Umm, none!

The Yellow Wallpaper

This short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is not new to me, I read it in high school, but all I remembered was that I really liked it back then. I liked it now too, but probably understood it better, since I immediately got annoyed with the narrator's husband.

The narrator is a woman whose husband confined her in an upstairs room of a house, so that she can get 'better'. He, a physician, has diagnosed her with depression and hysteria, basically. She is now allowed to work, she can't see her child, she can't even write in her journals. She becomes obssessed with the wallpaper and imagines that a woman is trapped in it. Eventually she starts believing that she IS the woman behind the bars in the wallpaper.

All I kept thinking about was feminism and how the woman's husband belittles her and her opinions about what's best for her. He says to her one time: "Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug, "she shall be as sick as she pleases!" How condescending is that?? He really made me angry.

Apparently, many people think that the story is feminist and about attitudes towards women's mental health in those years (the story was published in 1891). I think so too.

This was another one of my Daily Lit adventures. I'm really getting into short stories this way! :-)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's now-famous story through Daily Lit, which I'm completely in love with. Reading a short story like this was very enjoyable - except I kept wanting to find out what happens next so I read more than one installment per day. Oh well.

The story is about Benjamin, who is about 70 when he is born and who progresses through his life by steadily getting younger and younger until he dies as an infant. The idea was really good - kind of too good for a short story because there isn't much scope to develop it. I now want to watch the film, has anyone seen it?

I want to count short stories as something towards my goals for the year and am stealing the idea that Lezlie had - once my short story page count reaches 300-350pp I will count it as a book. I won't count this towards my goal of 100 books this year, but I will count it as part of my end-of-year tally. Thanks Lezlie!