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Just a Geek: Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise

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If you wish you could be a famous actor like Wil Wheaton, after reading this book you might understand that being a famous actor is not all cracked up to be. This is a guy who has had a hit movie and a hit TV show. Not many actors can claim one of each, and yet, he suffers the life of a "has been" and doesn't enjoy the riches we all think famous actors of hit stuff enjoy for a lifetime.

This guy has impressed me with his brutally honest autobiography. The people and industry he speaks of are the people you and I are likely to have heard of. It's the kind of stuff that could get you kicked out of Hollywood for good.

Why would anyone want to read an autobio about a guy on a couple of hit shows who is a blogger? I can't answer that, but I can tell ya it is great reading. The people who would like this book are geeks, bloggers, Star Trek fans, famous people fans, actor wanna-bes, parents with step-kids, and Shatner haters.

Despite his being celebrity, he's a guy who faces problems many of us do. Financial, a difficult ex who is no help with the kids, balancing a career and family, and finding the right job.

His writing style is candid, conversational and comes across like a friend who is talking to you. Since he and I are parents, must mention that he uses a few cuss words. If you like his blog writings, you'll like this book - without question. However, if you've read every blog entry he has done, you've read most of this book. Furthermore, if you've read Dancing Barefoot, you've caught about a chapter's worth of this book.

Trek fans, don't expect an entire book on his life as Wesley. Wheaton, the actor fans, don't expect an entire book about acting although it covers a bit. WWdN, you're getting exactly what you see in his blog.

He might be famous and a hotshot blogger, but he has lived through many things you and I have, too. That's what makes the book a delight. This review may sound like one from a groupie, but my responsibility is to readers not to Wheaton. My only disappointment was "re-reading" the "Saga of Spongebob Vegaspants" since this was already covered in Dancing Barefoot.

This book is a frank, straight up look into Wil Wheatons life and transformation from actor, to writer (and believe me there is a lot that happens in between that transformation). I highly recommend this book, whether you are a Star Trek fan or not, its a book about simply being a loving, caring, individual.

Although Wil draws on his experiences during and after Star Trek for this book, it's not a celebrity memoir or similiar plea for attention. Just a Geek is a real-world story of one guy's struggles to be a good person/husband/father/actor/blogger/geek -- basically what we all deal with to some degree or another -- but funnier than heck. Wil Wheaton has great comic timing and a refreshing willingness to poke fun at himself and his mistakes.

And even though Trek isn't all this book is about, if you've ever attended a SF convention or watched Trekkies read this book for a glimpse of the actor's lives behind the scenes.

I never bother to get writers to sign their books, but if I ever get the chance to meet Wil, I'll ask him to sign my copy. Brilliant stuff.

The back cover of Just a Geek, by Wil Wheaton, says "Biography/Science Fiction", which makes it sound as if it were going to be something like "I, Robot". But this is not a book about Star Trek, although Wheaton does discuss the time he spent playing the character of Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation". It's not a typical Hollywood celebrity gossip book, either. For a former child star, Wheaton seems to have led a life remarkably free of drug problems and felony convictions. What it is, is an insightful, humourous, beautifully written look at Wheaton's journey from, as he puts it, "That Washed Up Guy Who Used To Be An Actor When He Was A Kid" to "That Guy With The Cool Weblog Who Is Just A Geek Like The Rest Of Us".

By turns hilariously entertaining and deeply moving, Wheaton with brutal honesty shares the pain of pursuing his increasingly unsuccessful acting career, and his coming to terms with what Star Trek meant to him. It's a funny and bittersweet account of his growing up, his discovery of the power of blogging, his love for his wife and sons, and his realisation that writing was what he really wanted to do. He intersperses excerpts from his weblog, (www.wilwheaton.net), a very effective way of showing us what he was thinking and feeling at the time. I found it thoroughly enjoyable to read, and I'll be looking forward to his future writing.

The back cover also shows Wheaton at his desk. The books visible include "Running Linux" and "Learning Perl", and there is a stuffed Tux perched jauntily on top. Writer, actor, poker player, husband and father, Wil Wheaton is also a Linux geek and proud of it.

Mariette

Yesterday I had a package from O'Reilly awaiting me on the porch. It was Wil Wheaton's Just A Geek. Since I've been doing little but reading and reviewing tech books of late, I decided to take a break and dive into this one. I am so glad I did. It's quite the read...

Wheaton, as many probably know, played Wesley Crusher in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation and starred in the movie Stand By Me. He was a teen actor at that time, and decided that TNG was holding him back from moving on to feature films. When he left the series, little did he know that his acting career would never be the same. He resented and hated how people defined him as Wesley, not as Wil, and struggled hard with what role TNG should have in his life. During that angst-ridden time, he got married, became a father to two stepchildren, struggled to find acting jobs, and most importantly, started a blog before blogs were all the rage. His site, www.wilwheaton.net, became a hit and attracted a loyal following. While many readers were trekkies, there was also a large audience of people who visited due to his writing, his comedy, and his ability to open up his life and share his feelings and struggles with others. This book tells the story, through blog entries and vignettes, of his transformation from child actor to budding writer.

The style is raw, comedic, emotional... While most of us don't come from his background, all of us can relate to the constant companions of Doubt and Self-Loathing, two creatures who question our every move and live to make sure they're having more fun than we are. I'm not a big Star Trek fan, and mostly got this book due to having some fellow colleagues who know Wil. After reading the book, I've added his site to my list of must-read blogs and look forward to reading his other book.

Wheaton has found his life's calling... he's a writer. And those of us who are his readers are better because of it.

Mostly known from the movie "Stand By Me" and TV's "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Wil Wheaton presents this memoir as a glimpse at the impact that leaving Star Trek, then at its height in popularity, had on him and how he eventually came to terms with his choice. He offers as evidence of his growth as a person excerpts from his weblog, which are peppered throughout to give the reader a comparison of his "gut reaction" at the time with his more analytical remembrances in the rest of the book.

The book is divided into three acts, starting from his decision to leave Star Trek behind and figure what he really should do with his life. We come back to him a couple of years later, now married with children, as he sets out to prove he's more than a former child actor by building a website. The project gets a lukewarm reception until he starts opening up his personal life to the public at large. As his audience grows, he is established as one of the more well-known voices within the "blog-o-sphere," not for reporting gossip or breaking hot news stories, but for simply showing that fame in Hollywood truly can be fleeting or, at the very least, can change into something unexpected.

In the final act of the story, Wheaton relates his growth from acting to writing as the central focus of his career. In addition, he finally makes his peace with having been Wesley Crusher, equally loved and despised by fans of Star Trek (and himself), and reconnects with his former castmates in some really touching moments. Of special note is Chapter Eleven, titled "The Wesley Dialogues," in which Wheaton has several humorous tęte-á-tętes with his fictional counterpart, who is embodied by a collectible action figure he is forced to sell to help pay the bills.

As it states in the subtitle on the cover, the rather long "Unflichingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise", Wil Wheaton gives a refreshing and truthful look at the frustrations of being a working actor within Hollywood. Star Trek fans will delight in learning more about the man behind of one the more well-known characters in that universe. Even people who have never heard of him will be drawn to his frank and honest writing style, even when he derides his own misuse of English in early weblog entries. From ill relatives to a Las Vegas adventure to his own reflections on the September 11 attacks, people from all walks of life can find something in "Just A Geek" to relate to.

Wil Wheaton is best known for his teenage role as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek - The Next Generation. But after several seaons, he left. In part, as he explains here, because he wanted to branch out into other acting roles.

Probably unlike most of you, I'd only seen a few episodes of TNG. I was familiar with his role and had assumed that he'd made a packet and was now quite well off financially. But this book disabused me. Wheaton gives a searing autobiographical narrative that expands upon his earlier work, "Dancing Barefoot", and is far better written. In "Geek", he fleshes out a lot of the backdrop to the first book, which in many ways is a set of disjointed essays.

This book describes his travails in trying to find acting roles, especially back in TNG. Very revealing of how, even for someone with an accomplished record, rejections are so common. I've known people in Los Angeles who've dreamed of becoming professional actors, and also a few SAG members. None has even remotely equalled Wheaton. Yet even at his level, it can be heartbreaking. He chronicles a series of failed auditions. All the while struggling to help support his family. If the narrative is occasionally awkward, it is because it reflects real life, not a polished fiction.

Also poignantly, he regrets many times not staying with TNG for its full run. At the very least, it would have let him build a nest egg and so enabled less hardship later. In retrospect, his decision to leave was one of those fateful junctions in life. (The moving hand having written, cannot now unwrite, and all that.)

Many readers will find much to identify with here. Even if you have nil interest in acting, his experiences speak to broader issues in life that so many have encountered and endured. Wheaton writes for Everyman.

I finished reading Wil's book a few weeks ago. I almost read it in one sitting, and if it weren't for those meddling kids I would've done it too.

I bought the book because like a lot of us I heard about it through Wil's website WWdN. I hadn't been following Wil's adventures for sometime because I just had other, more important stuff to do, such as forage for food. In fact, the last time I read any of Wil's stuff he was having a conversation with an action figure of himself he was selling on EBay to help cover some bills.

As fate would have it I was busy installing Mozilla Powerraccoon this past summer and saw his site in my bookmarks to import. I decided to dip in a see how the whole EBay thing went for him and I ended up getting hooked. So much so that I spent my last few dollars on his book, Just A Geek.

The book is a collection of his bLog Entries over the last few years with the added bonus of his thoughts behind each post - where he was at mentally while writing, learning and rediscovering himself.

He puts his posts in the basket ... er ... book without editing them or using any method of self-preservation. Instead he allows the audience a full-frontal, non-stand-in view of his personality, fears, expectations and short-comings as he struggles to find himself. It's a must read for anyone who is looking for a way to understand themselves, unashamed of circumstance and wanting to eviscerate their Id to find the truth.

Wil. The capital `W' for Writer.

It's funny that, even though Star Trek: The Next Generation was even more popular than the original series--running seven seasons and spawning three spin-off series--no one from that show has, until now, written a memoir, even though practically every cast member (save the late DeForest Kelley, unfortunately)from the first Star Trek has written or contributed to one (Shatner and Nimoy have done a couple each, at least). Maybe it's because none of the other TNG actors have had quite the dramatic hero's journey of Wil Wheaton, who had up until recent years been known mostly as the actor behind the least popular regular character in the Star Trek universe, Wesley Crusher. Even the most diehard science fiction fan couldn't have guessed, back in the early nineties, that Wheaton would have returned to the public eye and popular acclaim as the author of something called a "blog".

Wheaton's real talent, though, doesn't lie in his embrace of real-life twenty-first century technology, but his unflinching honesty and sometimes brutal self-examination, something largely missing from most Trek autobiographies. Check out the chapter posted on O'Reilly's website to see what I mean: he's willing to reveal that his weblog posts may have concealed how he truly felt, and that he is guilty of many of the same faults as the people that he's spent most of the chapter criticizing. How common is that?

How am I supposed to get any sleep with sich a great read waiting to be read!

Buy this book, and buy some more to give away as gifts as well. But be sure you have a few hours to spare first! The time you spend will be well worth it.

Even if you have only the mildest or even no interest in either Star Trek or computers, this is essentially a book about coming to terms with who you are, even when that isn't who you thought you were - and also recognising your past as being a part of who you are, as well.

There is a great deal of promise here for more books by Will Wheaton. Make it so.