Book Review-a-Palooza: Geek Wisdom, Punching Tom Hanks, Hardware: The SF Art of Chris Foss

?? I’m actually genuinely upset that I didn’t write Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture first. Stephen Segal had a great idea — take the most famous quotes of nerdery, I mean everything, from “Knowing is half the battle” and “Don’t panic” to “And I’ll form the head” and “Spoon!” — and examine what they can teach us about being ourselves, being a nerd, and being our nerdy selves. It’s practically the nerd I Ching, and for that alone, it deserves to be checked out. Unfortunately, I think the writers (Segal only edited) fumble some of the quote interpretations — honestly, I think some of them could have gone much deeper — but overall the book is still a brilliant idea, and well worth reading. If there were a TR book club, this is the book I would recommend first.

?? Admittedly, Punching Tom Hanks is a bit more of a comedy book than a nerd book, but this how-to guide by comedy writer Kevin Seccia does have a great deal of advice on how emerge victorious from fights with Luke Skywalker, robots, zombie Abraham Lincoln, time-traveling cavemen, a time-traveling future version of yourself, a Tyrannosaurus Rex accompanied by Mark Wahlberg, Superman, Angel from Angel, Achilles, and much, much more. The real highlight, though, is his chapter on beating up celebrities, many of whom offer rebuttals including Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, and singer Aimee Mann (alas, Tom Hanks’ rebuttal must have been lost in the mail. Anyways, it’s a lot of fun and it cheered me right the hell up after I finished that chapter of A Dance with Dragons. You know which one I’m talking about.

?? You might not know Chris Foss, but if you’ve ever seen a sci-fi paperback from the ’60s or ’70s, chances are you know his work. He’s done the art for hundreds of sci-fi novels, including novels by Asimov, Poul Anderson, Ben Bova, E.E. Doc Smith, and many more, and Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss collects them all. Now, this isn’t like pulp art, with big breasted green alien girls and such, but the hard stuff — elaborate, unique spacecraft, bizarre but oddly realistic robots, glittering, futuristic cities, unreal alien structures and all the mysteries of the universe — many times altogether. I’m generally a sucker for nerdy art books anyways, but I absolutely love this thing. Again, I’m sure some people could find these incredible paintings of nothing but spaceships and alien planets not pulp-y enough, but I’m also certain there are people reading TR who are thrilled by the idea (besides me). The book will be released on September 6th, and can be pre-ordered here.