Get your geek on
They love sci-fi, anime, fantasy gaming, and all things Tolkien. And they're no longer relegated to pop culture's dungeon.
Ruth Evensen wears a lime-green knit cap and a ''Die Orc" T-shirt. Taking a drag on her cigarette, she says she knows what she is, and she's not ashamed to admit it.
'' 'Geek' works for me," she says.
Not so long ago, admitting that you read Issac Asimov or played Dungeons & Dragons invited stares, silence, or public ridicule. But Evensen, 30, manager of Cambridge's Pandemonium Books & Games, explains that being a geek has become downright acceptable.
''Geeks are not in the closet anymore," the Allston native says. ''People are proud to wear their geekdom around here." Some of her best customers of science fiction and fantasy books and games, she explains, are ''high-powered CEOs, doctors, lawyers, and contractors."
Once marginalized, the sci-fi/fantasy fan community -- ''fandom," for short -- has gone mainstream. New fans, or ''fen," have entered the fold. So forget those worn-out cliches about Trekkies and computer hackers being unable to handle reality, let alone get a date for the prom. For these socially savvy and self-deprecating fanboys and girls, ''geek" -- that leftover US military term for someone with ''General Electrical Engineering Knowledge" -- isn't a four-letter word anymore.
''The stereotype of the geek science-fiction fan with tape on his glasses and a slide rule in his pocket is 20 to 30 years out of date," says Tyler Stewart, 39, Evensen's boss and proprietor of Pandemonium. ''We've moved beyond cult status. There are too many successful geeks out there."
Locally, as the scene has exploded both in appeal and diversity, not only are attitudes changing, but fandom-related business is up and attendance at local conventions is soaring.
''Science fiction right now is at one of its high points," says Elisabeth Carey, 48, spokeswoman for Boskone, the Boston area's longest-running sci-fi/fantasy convention, which is mostly devoted to books and authors. ''People aren't recoiling in horror [anymore], saying, 'You read this stuff?' "
Books are just the beginning. Aficionados express their passion for futuristic worlds and far-away magical lands by studying J.R.R. Tolkien's invented languages, designing costumes based on favorite Japanese anime characters, or collecting ''Hellboy" action figures or Yoda Pez dispensers. No matter your obsession, the great cloak of the science fiction/fantasy community will embrace you.
''Within the whole SF/fantasy geek [world], you can pretty much do anything and people are pretty accepting," Evensen says.
Fueling the fandom renaissance are crossover successes like the recent ''Star Wars" and ''Lord of the Rings" trilogies, top grossers that have attracted a remarkable audience of ''lite" SF fans and brought words such as ''droids" and ''hobbits" into the popular lexicon for good. Those franchises have also convinced more staid institutions, including Boston's Museum of Science, to cash in on the wave of popularity.
''Popular culture is a great way for getting people interested in science," says Ed Rodley, a Museum of Science curator. ''There's a whole generation of roboticists who saw '2001: A Space Odyssey' and wanted to do artificial intelligence. Ten years behind them are 'Star Wars' fans."
Last year, the museum's ''Lord of the Rings" exhibit was a huge hit. The current show ''Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination" set a record, attracting 15,193 visitors in one day.
More hard-core buffs attend conventions such as Vericon, put on last month by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association. According to its organizers, the event is now the largest college-based convention, or ''con," in the country.
''The easiest way to measure [our success is] by the number of attendees we had -- over 600 -- which is more than double our number from last year," says Emily Morgan, 20, Harvard student and Vericon's chairwoman. ''I definitely don't think this was just a one-year spike."
As far as overall conventions go, Vericon is a small one. Boskone, held later this week, attracts hundreds more participants. Still, Harvard's modest three-day gathering included 80 events, from traditional activities such as strategy gaming, readings by authors like George R.R. Martin, and discussions on ''world building," to the more cutting-edge: workshops on Web comics and costume making, a masquerade ball and scavenger hunts, skits parodying favorite books, and a live-action human chess match.
''Science fiction [fandom] has evolved beyond being the escapism that it was," says Kartik Venkatram, 22, a Vericon chairperson ''emeritus." Watching gaming groups huddle around tables in a dorm common room, Venkatram explains that literature, music, politics, art, and performance are much more important to fandom today. So is tearing fen away from their computer screens to meet likeminded enthusiasts face-to-face. ''That's why we put on Vericon, to ferment this kind of interaction, to get people talking."
The burgeoning demand for socializing in the fandom community has convinced Tyler Stewart to move Pandemonium Books & Games, a Harvard Square institution since 1989, to a much larger location. The store will relocate next month to a 3,800-square-foot site in Central Square, quadrupling the store's space. The new digs will accommodate an expanded product line but also room for gaming, movie nights, and author events to target readers (of books), watchers (of TV/DVDs), collectors (of paraphernalia), gamers, and socializers. ''I wanted to create a space that appeals to all five [categories]," he says. In effect, Stewart aims to create an ongoing convention ambience.
Stewart will be competing with Games Workshop, a store specializing in tabletop miniatures war gaming that has four locations in Massachusetts. In the evenings, adolescent boys and grown men congregate at the Harvard Square ''Battle Bunker," snap open their suitcases of intricately painted armies, and go to war, advancing their Warhammer plastic and pewter figurines across foam landscapes and rolling dice to determine the victor. The remarkably low-tech game is holding its own against PC games.
''What we find often is we'll get a 12-year-old in here and his dad will get hooked," manager Jon Washer says. The shop has 15 gaming tables for swords-and-sorcery and futuristic themed games. ''Some people just like painting the miniatures."
A miniatures game like Warhammer and a role-playing game like the ground-breaking Dungeons & Dragons, which debuted in 1974 and helped spawn the fantasy game movement, appeal mostly to males. But fandom is attracting a lot more women, largely because of more inclusive, less violent subcultures such as theater- and music-based ''cosplay" (costume-based fandom play) events and ''filk" (folk music with SF/fantasy-themed lyrics).
''The gender split at this point is just about 50-50," says Boskone's Carey. ''That's new. Historically that wasn't true, even 10 years ago,"
Kerri Wilbur, 17, of Charlton, started watching anime when she was young, then got into cosplay and role-playing games in high school. ''I make costumes based on anime and video games," says Wilbur, brandishing a fake sword at Vericon.
Unlike some teenagers, she doesn't fear the wrath of her peers in retaliation for her atypical behavior. ''No one really cares what you do," Wilbur says. During a pep rally, Wilbur once lip-synched in front of her school to a Japanese pop song and relished in her schoolmates' reaction. ''They were so confused. It was awesome."
Despite newfound acceptance, some members of the fandom community still find themselves struggling against prevailing stereotypes -- mainly, that their hobby is juvenile, frivolous, or just plain nerdy. But the modern geek has an answer to that critique. ''People memorize baseball player stats the way some people memorize Star Wars characters," says Izzy Peskowitz, 28, in town from New York City for Vericon. ''I don't think sports fans are all that different from science fiction or fantasy fans."
Ethan Gilsdorf can be reached at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com. 