By Marshall Julius (September Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-91283-602-4 (PB)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: For The Man Who Has Grandchildren Who Never Know What To Get Him… 9/10
I’m notionally interrupting our eldritch Occultoberfest ramblings to offer a “heads up†on a splendidly accessible book that will bring joy and frustration to a good many of you and even, at least tangentially, counts as a celebration of spooky doings. Read on…
It’s sometimes hard to appreciate, but the world has in some ways improved. When I was a kid, those fringe-&-border youngsters who obsessed over weird stuff like comics or shows like Thunderbirds or Star Trek mostly got beaten up by the Normal Kids who only spent passion and brain cells on pop star names, sports statistics and the right shoes to wear.
Not me, of course. I was able to hide my otherness under a shell of sporting excellence, barbed wit and by occasionally uterly tuoghing up the odd swot or two (that was a test just there, and you’ll only know if you passed it by being already in the know…), Hem Hem…
Anyway, these days the terms Geek – and its concomitant sub-rankings Nerd and Wonk – are badges of affectionate honour (well, alright, not honour, but tolerable enough to have people accept and even grudgingly admire the obsessively tenacious striving for pedantic accuracy and stultifying clarity in subjects of supposedly minimal general interest): enough so that said topics of interest have become appropriate nostalgic fare for family gatherings, game shows and pub quizzes. Some of these forbidden subjects even get blockbuster movies made out of their clunky antecedents…
Knowing stuff other than football and cricket stats and showing off are acceptable activities these days, so uber-fan Marshall Julius – who has expertise and appropriately vast memorabilia collections in many separate disciplines of past pop culture and confesses to being a “film critic, blogger, broadcaster, quizmaster and collector of colourful plastic things†– has compiled a traditional quiz book to do his boasting in print: creating quite possibly one of the most family-friendly group-socializing books of the century.
After Sunday lunch or a during a party, whip out this missive containing 1000 questions and suitably detailed answers and just watch the armchair experts strive to display their personal proficiency whilst reliving their cherished but distant childhoods…
All topics stem from the 20th century (certainly the most entertaining one we’ve had thus far) and offer 50 questions only the most sagacious aficionado and savant could know. Each section even includes brain-busting interrogatives from star guests such as George Takei, Carrie Henn, Sam Neill, Louise Jameson, Mark Hamill, Dan Slott, Pat Mills, James Arnold Taylor and dozens of others. If you don’t know at least four of these celebs then your other excuse for buying the book is for educational purposes…
If you or yours think they know about James Bond: The Roger Moore Years; The Simpsons: The First Ten Years; George A. Romero: Night, Dawn and Day; The Mighty Marvel Age of Comics; The Force is Strong With These Three: Star Wars!/Empire/Jedi or Doctor Who: The Tom Baker Years they can proudly and loudly prove it now.
They might even have puissant affinity for the serried secrets of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy; The 2600: Atari’s Electric Dream; Retrofuturistic: Fifties’ Sci Fi Cinema; Crossing Over into The Twilight Zone; Walt’s Wonderful World of Disney; Stephen King: Carrie to Christine and Ray Harryhausen’s Creature Features, but can even they complete the testing to mental abstraction that lies within Star Trek: The Original Series; If It Bleeds We Can Kill It: Eighties’ Action Classics; 2000AD: The First 500 Thrill-Powered Progs; Universal Monsters Unleashed!; Hanna-Barbera: The General Motors of Animation; Steven Spielberg: Jaws to Jurassic Park and – toughest of all – Batman: The Animated Series?
Preceded by a photo-packed Introduction by the author and an effulgent Foreword from The Simpsons writer Michael Reiss, Vintage Geek is the ultimate “Dad†book and will give all oldsters their best chance to prove they once had a life…
Sort of…
© Marshall Julius 2019. All Rights Reserved.