Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Ohmigod this is hilarious. And so true.

>>partially-resorpted fetal twin dangling from their forehead<<

Now this I’ve yet to come across. IRL *or* in my reading, although that would be an interesting conversation piece in a romance.

Yes, yes and yes!

I love geek heroes--one of my favorite moments in a book was MaryJanice Davidson’s UNDER COVER. In the third novella, the geek hero comes in to the office for the first time while playing the Superman theme song. It’s hilarious, but I swear I know a bunch of people just like that (uh, but without the tons of cash).

Ditto on the conversation—tangents are everywhere, and often very funny.

I think a lot of people mix up “very smart” and “geeky”—I can see the smart in some heroes/heroines, but not often the geek. And, when the geek does come out, they are immediately cured through sexual healing—they take off their thick glasses and become sex gods. Whuh? Sure, there’s probably a lot of porn watching going on (Mulder, heh) but that doesn’t exactly portray a healthy sexual relationship for them to learn from.

I have nothing to add here but wwwhhhheeeeeeee a mulder and baby jesus crying reference in one thread.

excuse me while I sqeeee

ok move along now

I love the geek hero.  It’s mental masturbation.  I once fell in total lust with a long-time ren-faire junkie like me.  He could quote nearly every line in any Monty Python creation, but what seduced me was when he recited dialogue from The 13th Warrior.  I was a goner.  ;-P

And speaking of Iron Chef, I watch the America series.  I want Masaharu Morimoto as my personal sex slave.  He can toss my pillows and/or my salad any day.

Did you read and like Nerd in Shining Armor by Vicki Lewis Thompson?  That is the only effective geek hero I’ve seen in romanceland.  He didn’t speak like Spock.  He didn’t care much about his clothes, but since I don’t care much about clothes, I didn’t care.  He was funny.  He managed to fly a plane in an emergency because one of his hobbies was doing those flight simluator games or whatever they are.  Anyway, I’d be curious to hear your take on him.  (The book isn’t perfect but I found it quite funny and very readable.)

Ah...you guys are my heroes.  I love geeks.  I’m married to a geek (Masters Electrical Engineering) and my friends are geeks (though mostly engineer geeks, I mean, one built a large Tesla coil by himself just for kicks, and a sawmill to build the coil).  And Monty Python...my husband once re-enacted the mattress/paperbag sketch in bed.  And I loved it.  And the little things that crop up into conversation, like clock edges.  And the hobbies…

And they’re FUNNY.  And rather hot.  And funny.  At least the ones I know are funny.

I’m married to a physicist and about 90% of the people we hang out with are astro-physicsts (seriously).  I, too, know geeks!

That said, I don’t think I’ve ever read a really great geek hero.  I’ll have to pick up the books you mentioned.

Wheeeeee!  I stay very, very far away from geek hero romances PRECISELY because of these reasons! I married a self-made geek myself, and sometimes his geekery goes way over my head, but damn is his brain sexy! I enjoy talking to geeks so much more than non-geeks - the mental twists they make, the plays on words, are so much more interesting and funny.

Wassup with the “man on man” sex scenes.  Am I on the wrong site?

Yummy: Emma Holly writes “erotic romances.” This means different things for different people, but in Holly’s case, it means she explores a lot a sexual matter that’s been strictly taboo in traditional romances. Hence, man-on-man sex, man-on-man-on-woman sex, sex with an assortment of toys (used on both men and women), etc. I love it, but I imagine it might offend some sensibilities. I’ll have the review up some time late today or early tomorrow if you’re interested in finding out about the book in more detail.

come now yummy, I am sure that is very romantic to some

and as far as erotica goes many many women love to read m/m

too each their own and all that

Oh, I’m not the prudish, but I was just curious.  I’m more of the one mand one woman kinda gal, but hey, to each his own.  And I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a fun read.  :D

Great post!

I adore geeks, they’ve always been my fav.  And you’re right, now I think about it, I’ve never read about a real geek. . . and you’re right about them being more fascinating (and sexy) than the average bear.  Geeks come in ALL flavors.  My geeklove has been mostly fixated on black (including foreign) geeks (they are out there) and okay, maybe a Chinese guy (lots of those out there) back when.

Yayyyy, Geeks!

Jorie: I haven’t read Nerd in Shining Armor. I’ve read and enjoyed Vicki Lewis Thompson in the past, but she can be really uneven in terms of quality. Mostly it’s her corniness that gets to me, plus how her characters fervently think about creating babies every time they get it on. Wanting children is all well and good, but to me, pregnancy ain’t sexy, and childbirth sure as hell ain’t sexy, and having that intrude in the nookie time turns me off. I’ve read some reviews and they seem to indicate that this book is pretty high in the cornball factor. If I see it in the bookstore, it’ll get the 15-page test, and thanks for the heads up.

How ‘bout a bunch of us geek lovers start up some kind of consultancy? “Geeks R Us” or something.

The line that got me ROTFL so bad I almost fell out of my chair, literally, was:

“they’re genuinely uncomfortable people to be around--but are we really trying to portray these kinds of geeks as the geek hero? I mean, WHY?”

Oh, so true, so true. I think that is the biggest contradiction out there in romances when authors do get the “geek” very wrong. Not mildly wrong, mind you, but irritatingly wrong. Why would anyone want someone that maladjusted as a hero/heroine anymore than they’d want a true alpha jerk as one?

Personally, I’ve always thought Jayne Ann Krentz does geek well without overplaying them. Her heroes AND heroines are usually fairly smart but with truly quirky individual personalitities that give each of them their own unique “geekiness”. Somewhat stereotypical but never enough to get in the way of the story she’s trying to tell.

Erin McCarthy’s “Fuzzy Logic” in the Bad Boys Over Easy anthology has a geek hero. It’s a good story, and I love Lucas, the hero, though I tend to like McCarthy’s work. Not sure if you’d like the story, but it might be worth a look.

Alyssa

The sad thing is, SF does only a little better at geek heroes than Romance.  Though #3 is rarely an issue in those book.

---L.

I thought Hiro in Snow Crash was a pretty sexy computer geek hero. OK, he was pretty studly in general what with his katana and all, but y’know. The geeks in Cryptonomicon also resembled real-life geeks I know pretty closely. Both these books are by Neal Stephenson, which probably says “I’m a bitch for Neal!” more than anything else.

I’ve been a bitch for Stephenson since reading his first novel, The Big U, as a sophomore.  Who was a gamer, and hung out in the physics labs.

Yeah, he does good geek.  It could be argued that most of what he’s written is an attempt to seriously get Geek.  He’s something of an exception.

---L.

Y’know, I’m so much luckier and pickier in my SF reading than I am in my romance reading. I don’t think I’ve met an SF novel I haven’t liked yet, but then I’ve been reading mostly Big Names like Dan Simmons, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Vernor Vinge, Philip K. Dick. The possible exception would be Isaac Asimov, but I don’t dislike his books, I just find his writing style kind of meh.