Book Review – One Con Glory

Autumn
Monday
8:11 pm

Sarah Kuhn, the author of One Con Glory recently posted on geek six when Christy mentioned her book.  I got curious, so I picked it up and I’m super happy I did.   Here are 6 reasons why

1.  To get a taste of the book, the main character, Julie, has her own blog.  Excerpts of it are in the book, but I just looked at it and it is extensive, nerds like extensive things so of course I approve.

2.  I’ve traveled the convention circuit to a certain extent.  They are ridiculously fun, especially when you’re by yourself because you have more freedom to talk to random people.  These days I go for the camaraderie more than to talk to the celebrities anyways.  Teh nerds are funner.  And there are many archetypes.  And Sarah Kuhn’s got them pegged.  I think my favorite side character was Barb “a matronly, middle-aged woman …Despite her rather mild exterior, Barb is mostly known in the Periodic Seven community for her extremely pornographic fanfic, most of which features Travis Trent paired with the team’s other male members.”  Read -  2/3rds of all Lord of the Rings Convention Attendees.  Not that I totally relate to this character, quite the opposite, but man THANK YOU for finally mentioning how common those women are.  Not that they weird me out less now…still equally weirded out by them ;D

3.  Who I DO relate to is the main character.  Not that we’re exactly the same, like she reads comic books obsessively which was something my mom wouldn’t let do me when I was a kid because they were too expensive.  That being said, I’d say reading its like…hmm,  well you know when you’re reading a book about the town you live in and even though the characters aren’t you, you still feel a neighborly kinship about them?  It’s like that.  I like that.

4.  The key to every nerd banter is references.  Remember the Star Trek TNG episode where Picard gets “beamednapped”  down onto a planet (the first time you see his swank suede uniform jacket I might add!) with a pig-nosed alien and the universal translator can’t define the alien references? (As Troi explains “the word ‘love’ to them would be Romeo and Juliet on the balcony”)  Well, Sarah manages to take the interior monologue of references that goes on in every nerds mind and put it down on the page with remarkable aplomb.  (BTW, I can call the author by her first name because we follow each other on twitter, like we’re real friends!)

5.  I lawd at this line in particular -  “I, on the other hand, have always maintained that the general concept of non-interference is a pretty good idea (probably could’ve got home a lot sooner if you hadn’t dicked so many Delta Quadrant societies around, Janeway).”  And the book is full of nuggets such as this.

6.  There is a real life story arc to this mad dashery of a con story.  I enjoy a little meat to my nerdery, so that was excellent to see.  She goes beyond the obsessive behavior and nerd snootiness of Julie’s character to the heart of her geekdom and celebrates it, and it left me smiling.