A lot of women think they don’t “count” as geeks because they are not in geeky careers — the irony being, of course, that geekery is so often introspective, private, and not socially-driven. Young women don’t play D&D to ascend into careers as scientists. They play it because they’re geeks. Some geeks are also scientists.

I think the review was positive but misguided, chiefly by the reviewer’s lack of understanding that a fierce curiosity is central to geekdom. It was anti-intellectual, and correspondingly it placed more value in material tech than brain tech — phone cameras, wifi, and the space channel? Everyone has those! Geekdom is a way of thinking, not a way of spending! I wonder if consumers of the first polaroids, cordless phones, and the like were so bold.

Know that half of the essays in this book have to do with gaming, science fiction, and fantasy. And those writers for the most part are not hardcore scientists. Morgan Romine majored in anthropology. Quinn Norton is a journalist. Devin Grayson majored in English. And there are more. You have plenty of company in this book! I’m not a gamer or science fiction geek myself, and I encountered just as much unfamiliar material in their essays as they may have in mine or the other scientists’ pieces. I mean, I didn’t write up the Q & A after the Jan. 25 readings because most of it related to sci-fi stories that I haven’t read and shows that I’ve never watched on TV, so I didn’t know what the heck was going on! I’m an outsider there!

As for the review, I just thought that picking up a few new words of technical terminology shouldn’t be this insurmountable barrier for a reader curious to peek into this world. To refer to the reviewer’s first quote, so maybe you don’t need to know or care what a Bose-Einstein condensate is—you’ll never encounter one on the street, trust me—but if you’re reading blogs, you likely already know what RSS is. And since you’re adept with your computer, you are probably dealing with “sysadmin” issues all the time. The openness to at least engage with some of the geek’s vocabulary is all that is required.

And please don’t feel like you are letting your side down re the math and science. (Believe me, it’s not like the life of a scientist is all that it’s cracked up to be from the outside.) Do what does motivate you and be a proud and happy female geek in the world. And keep reading and contributing to the dialogue here!

I am that horrible woman who simply does not “get” math and my grasp of the hard sciences is extremely tenuous. I don’t brag about it as a mark of femininity, rather I find it sad and somewhat embarrassing, and reading this blog regularly reminds me that I am letting my side down. I don’t know what brought about the disconnect, but it is there, it is profound, and I haven’t been able to overcome it yet.

However, I am adept with my computer, I love tech gadgets, and I can discuss science fiction minutiae endlessly. I consider myself a geek, but maybe not by your standards. I’m a little relieved to know that someone else had a similar hesitation.

When we were in the editing stages of the book, we talked with our editor about the technical language and debated whether it should be less technical or not. In the end, Charlie and I prevailed on Seal to retain the technical language, though we did throw in a lot of parenthetical definitions of uncommon terms. We’re really glad that Seal stuck by us and let us be as geeky as we wanted to be!

One reason we fought to keep some of the essays technical was because we were sick of books that cast women as non-technical. As Kristin points out, we are geeks and this is what it’s like to be us. If we can inspire more women to be openly geeky, then I think we’ve done our jobs.

I think that’s one of the aspects of geek culture — both male and female — that puts off some non-geeks. We basically had a choice between being true to geek culture, or turning off some people.

But anyway, I didn’t think it was a bad review. If that’s the most negative write-up the book gets, we’re in awesome shape. In particular, if someone might have been interested in the book but hadn’t heard of it, they would probably be motivated to buy it after reading that review. Someone who would never have bought the book anyway probably still wouldn’t after reading that review. Which means the reviewer did her job well.