I haven’t watched Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG) for several years, so Wil Wheaton had fallen off my radar. A friend introduced me to The Guild, a web video series about a fictitious guild of online gamers. While watching season 3, I kept looking at one of the actors and thinking, “I’ve seen him before.” Yep, Wil Wheaton.
A few months later, I was shopping at Amazon and wanted one more book to round out my order so I could get free shipping. I stumbled across Just a Geek: Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise and decided to buy it.
Since it’s a collection of personal ramblings and anecdotes, many of which first appeared on Wheaton’s blog and are still there, I can’t discuss the book in depth without getting personal, something I don’t want to do. What I can say is that it’s a breezy read that starts out well but quickly becomes repetitive. Much of it focuses on Wheaton’s regret over leaving ST:TNG before the series ended.
I found it difficult to sympathize with Wheaton’s struggles, so I didn’t relate well to most of the book. But I enjoyed the anecdotes about the ST:TNG cast, and some of the convention stories were also a good read.
The way I see it, you have to be a Wil Wheaton or ST:TNG fan to enjoy the book. If you’re neither, you probably won’t get much out of it.
