❉ Marshall Julius’ love of pop culture trivia shines though in this wide-ranging quiz book.
“The depth of Marshall’s knowledge … is astounding. I only knew the answers to half the questions in his chapter about The Simpsons, and I wrote the book on the show”. – Simpsons writer Mike Reiss, from the book’s Foreword.
Inevitably, as approach December 25th, we will see a number of Quiz books hit the shelves. As a reader of We Are Cult, Vintage Geek by Marshall Julius, is undoubtedly worth your time and hard earned pennies more than most.
It features an impressive 1000 questions and a wide range of geeky pop culture categories including the original Star Wars trilogy, 2000A.D., Marvel Comics, Stephen King, the Atari 2600, Roger Moore-era Bond films and so much more. It’s the perfect gift for any of your nerdy friends or maybe just to test the depths of your own knowledge.
Indeed, I skipped straight to the chapter covering my own favourite subject (Doctor Who – the Tom Baker years) to see how I would fare.
I was impressed by the wide range of well researched questions that give every self-respecting geek a chance (without lowering itself into insultingly easy Daytime TV phone in quiz territory). There are also some humdingers that will explore the limits of your own internal database.
“What was Tom Baker’s only two-part Doctor Who serial?” (Easy, yes?)
“According to the 1980 Prime Computer commercial, featuring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, how long is the Doctor’s scarf? “(Er… Hang on a minute, I know this…).
Of course all this alone is worth the price of admission but there is also the added bonus of 50 questions from genre celebrities including Mark Hamill, John Carpenter, George Takei, Louise Jameson, Mark Millar, Sam Neill, Julie Nimoy, Sam J. Jones, Jeremy Dyson and many more. The foreword is written by former Simpsons showrunner/writer/legend Mike Reiss who claims: “The depth of Marshall’s knowledge about the series is astounding. I only knew the answers to half the questions in his chapter about The Simpsons, and I wrote the book on the show”.
Marshall Julius’s love and enthusiasm for these subjects shines throughout the whole book. His credentials are firmly cemented in the introduction which includes a wonderful picture of him as a child gazing up adoringly at Tom Baker in full Fourth Doctor costume at a public appearance back in the 1970s and another of him hanging out with the legendary Ray Harryhausen back in 1988. In fact you only have to look at his Twitter account (@MarshallJulius ) to see that he lives and breathes this stuff. He is indeed one of us.
Vintage Geek is perfect for a geeky gathering, when you and your like-minded friends fancy a change from Cards against Humanity or the PlayStation 4. Get the drinks and nibbles ready and see who claims the nerd crown. Or as the author himself says: ” It would surely be no hardship to spend a day watching, say, George Romero’s first three Dead flicks or John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, and certainly, you’ll get more of the answers right!”
Now doesn’t that sound like a plan?
❉ ‘Vintage Geek: The Quiz Book’ by Marshall Julius (ISBN-13: 9781912836024) is out now from September Publishing. To order: UK: tiny.cc/BuyVintageGeek | US: tiny.cc/BuyVintageGeekUS
❉ David Geldard is a contributor to We Are Cult and loves Sci Fi & Horror, Doctor Who, Starburst Magazine, Stranger Things, The 60’s Avengers, Twilight Zone, The X-Files, cult movies and weird shit. He tweets as @BungleSir.
