Dancing Barefoot by Wil Wheaton Illustrated by Ben A Claassen III Monolith Press 107 pages, $12.95

If you've followed the recent phenomenon of "blogging" at all, you've probably run across the weblog (online journal) of Wil Wheaton at wilwheaton.net. Wheaton, best known to film fans as Wesley "The Boy" Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, has reinvented his public persona from oft-derided teen idol to a kind of affable head-geek. From his web site, the thirty-something actor and writer dispatches frequent updates about his working and personal life, his memories and thoughts on the Trek experience, and the technology that fascinates him and his geek brethren.

After nearly two years of blogging, Wheaton compiled and edited an autobiography from his blog entitled Just a Geek, to be released in June 2003. Several of the stories which "didn't fit" into Geek have been collected in a smaller companion volume, Dancing Barefoot, which is now available from Wheaton's publishing company, Monolith Press (www.monolithpress.com). The legions of Trek fans who have rediscovered Wheaton as a guy much like themselves, as well as those weblog readers who enjoy Wil's humor but don't know the difference between trilithium and tribbles, will find Barefoot irresistable. Those with only a casual interest in Wheaton but familiar with Trek will find the book's showpiece, "The Saga of Spongebob Vegas Pants," well worth reading. Wheaton's conversational, intimate writing style may even convince them to read the rest of the book. Cartoon illustrations provided by Ben A. Claassen III are an excellent complement to the casual essays.

Barefoot begins with four short pieces, essentially vignettes of days (or even moments) in the author's life. These range from the amusing (ruminations on teenaged lust and paths untaken) to the melancholy ("Houses in Motion," a paean to Wheaton's deceased great aunt), and one needn't be told that they were culled from journal entries, because they very much read that way. The best is "Houses" -- although it sometimes ranges into maudlin territory, it is also the most courageous writing in the book. Wheaton's generation has been raised on a diet of pop culture and cynicism, and it's invigorating -- if somewhat startling -- to see someone of that generation openly expressing such feelings of devotion and despair.

The man who spent his formative years aboard the starship Enterprise departs from the short form for the final and most engrossing portion of the book, the aforementioned "Spongebob Vegas Pants." It's the chronicle of a Star Trek convention held in Las Vegas, during which Wheaton tolerates the alternatingly ugly and kindly faces of fandom, but eventually rediscovers his enthusiasm for the Trek universe. Those who have attended such conventions will immediately recognize the fan archetypes, while those who have never been to such an event may decide that they never, ever want to. Fortunately, the story is less about the horrors of being a convention guest and more about the resolution of Wheaton's conflicted personal feelings about having been a part of the Trek phenomenon -- including his unpleasant run-ins with the original captain of the Enterprise, referred to repeatedly as "William F---ing Shatner."

Certain sections of Dancing Barefoot could have used another turn under an editor's pen. "Sponge Bob Vegas Pants," in particular, has a few passages that don't serve the story much, but as with the deleted scenes on a special edition DVD, some readers will be grateful for the extra material, regardless of how it affects the overall pace. Frequent atticisms will sustain the rest of the book's audience through the book's slower passages, though, and the author's humility is an effective antidote for the feeling that one might be about to read the memoirs of yet another self-indulgent celebrity blowhard -- which Mr. Wheaton certainly is not.

Given that the engaging Dancing Barefoot comprises the material that didn't make it into Just A Geek, it feels much like an appetizer to the larger work. Let's hope the main course is as tasty.