Ultimate Geek Fu

As I wrote to start off my "Old Goat" column on Monday, this year has passed by amazingly quickly. It's sort of odd writing that because at times this year has seemed like a slow motion slog simply to get from one hour to the next. I'm still not sure how minutes, hours and days can pass so slowly yet months and the year can pass so quickly. Regardless, welcome to the final Ultimate Geek Fu column of 2009.

Here at Geek Fu Central, we sometimes find ourselves scrambling to come up with a topic for the weekly column. Actually, we usually find ourselves scrambling to come up with a topic. This week is no different. Still, I did manage to find something to write about it. It's up to you to decide if that's a good thing or not.

This is the week when everyone seems to be doing year end retrospectives. This seems like a perfectly fine idea for Geek Fu, as well. The thing is, I'm not planning to look back on world developments or, for the most part, anything that affected very many people. Though there were some truly serious and, worse, truly tragic events that affected some or all of us here at the Friday Challenge, this isn't the place to discuss those events. I intend to keep this column on the light side. I intend on presenting, with great pride, my personal geek highlights for 2009. Settle back and prepare to be awed and amazed by the accomplishments of a true master of Geek Fu!

All of my truly geeky accomplishments center around this site.

First, about eight months after being asked, I finally delivered on my promise to Bruce to write columns about writing comic books (Part 1 is here, if you're interested and haven't read the columns). Not only did I manage, with some very helpful suggestions from you readers, to write a dozen columns on the subject, I also found myself realizing consciously certain aspects of the art of comic book writing that had previously resided only in my subconscious.

Two of my major geeky accomplishments were entries in Friday Challenges. The first came at a time when I was in need of a bit of a pick-me-up, having lost my job the week before. That was the Heart of Darkness challenge, where Bruce asked us to "make at least a promising start towards writing a modern, updated, 21st century (or later) good clanking hard sci-fi remake of Heart of Darkness." I didn't do that. Instead of a sci-fi remake, I wrote "Heart of Dorkness," my attempt at using the same writing conventions Conrad used, except mine was about a D&D player relating the story of a game of D&D played at a convention. It was fun to write and, despite not really satisfying the challenge, was the winner for that week.

Two months later, the geekiness that is the "Heart of Dorkness" was completely overshadowed by my other treasured geek Friday Challenge accomplishment. Bruce gave us all a wonderful lead-in to write a new John Carter of Mars story. I'm a big fan of the books so knew I just had to do justice to the challenge. As I finished up the 5000 word short story, "John Carter and the Bronze Men in Mars," I felt I had delivered my single best challenge entry to date, trying my best to emulate Edgar Rice Burroughs' writing style. But many times it's hard to judge your own writing, so I asked a friend and fellow John Carter fan to read the story. He told me if he hadn't known I was the author, he could have easily believe it was written by Burroughs. Rubbing my hands together while laughing maniacally, I envisioned my entry crushing all others in the Friday Challenge! Only, no one else even entered that week. Sigh... Obviously my Geek Fu scared off the rest of you.

The year held some other truly geeky highlights. The role playing game I run set in the Firefly 'Verse reached a climax when, after three years of regular gaming sessions, the characters finally caught up with their arch enemy, looked him right in the eyes and then put a bullet between those same eyes. (He was a really bad guy and definitely had it coming.) I got goosebumps watching the new Star Trek movie. This has definitely been my most successful year on the storytelling circuit. And I had my first short story publishing, albeit in a non-paying market.

As you can see, my Geek Fu has been powerful this year. Do you dare step forward and pit your puny Geek Fu against mine?

Let the arguments begin!