Finally,
I'm getting caught up.

I've always been a little nerdy. I know you'll have a hard time believing that, especially with a descriptive and accurate handle like "ACOOLKID." But it's true. I found wonder in Star Wars growing up. I saw two Star Trek movies in the theatre. I read The Hobbit in 5th grade. And now, I am a computer programmer.

I've never taken the plunge, though. I've never gone to a Con (the Nintendo Show I went to in 7th grade doesn't count. Either do the Dog Shows and Horse Shows I went to with my dad...) I've never built my own computer (Apple will do that for me, and they do it pretty well...), and though I have finished Lord of the Rings twice, I refuse to journey into The Silmarion.

But operating on the fringe like I do, I'm always looking in, wondering, am I missing something? The friends I have that wear nerdiness as a badge of honor are some of my favorite people in the world. And the nerdy moments I have had brought me enlightenment and connections with others (especially at work...), so do I need some more exposure?

I try every once and a while to sojourn into the land of my adopted brethren and see if I can have more moments of selected bliss. And recently, I've been feeling a magnetic pull towards something Sci-Fi, and I decided to see if I could find a reasonably easy bridge to cross...

Thanks to a loan from a great co-worker, I finally took the opportunity to read Ender's Game. And this was a journey that paid off. The book, by Orson Scott Card is like meeting Harry Potter in a distopian future: Clever child that doesn't fit with his family is taken away to a school where his gifts set him apart from the others. He might even be needed in a plot to save the world... Of course, Card developed this 30 years ago...

The text was brainy, evocative, and did a brilliant job of balancing sci-fi posturing with plot necessity. Card does a dashing job of creating a world that could easily have begat Ender, which turns the rest of the story into a series of fantastic but solidly real developments. If all sci-fi was as balanced and founded, I'd hang out in these worlds a bit more often. Of course, I am a little bit out of time in reviewing this. The book was written in the time of Pong, but vividly describes virtual reality, AI gaming; networked laptops, and IM-ing. It certainly never felt dated...

So for the past week, since I finished the book, my nerd side has been breathing deep, well-fed breaths, and has been sending out tentacles searching for further stimuli. Unfortunately for it, Dan Brown's Angels and Demons was next on the list. But just getting a look at the (Card-created) world through Ender's eyes has forever changed my perception. And not just the nerdy part.

Tonight, I'm offering that as honest (though possibly twisted...), high praise.

PS: This is my first real book review. I plan to call book reviews AC Readmores, a nod to that crazy cat of ABC Saturday Mornings: OG Readmore. I realize that will go over most people's heads. But I'm taking a lot of nerdy pleasure in that. :-P
PPS: This is my 50th post. Yipee!