I’m a geek. That’s not news to anyone who knows me, or anybody who’s even seen me. I’m all kinds of geek. Movie geek, horror geek, goth, science fiction geek, gaming geek, and so on, and so on. I’ve always been proud to be a geek. But I have not, in fact, always been kind to my fellow geeks.

When I was a very young geek and I first started going to science fiction conventions, there was a schism between the Star Trek geeks and the Dr. Who geeks. I was a Trekkie. The Whoites ran around with big goofy scarves, and we mocked them mercilessly. Of course, they mocked us right back for wearing our dopey polyester Star Trek shirts and talking into plastic communicators.

As I matured as a geek, I settled in with the pro crowd. We were professional writers, which kind of made us geek royalty…