by Wil Wheaton, reading at Powell’s in Beaverton, 8725 SW Cascade Hwy, Wednesday, August 13, 7 pm

I hate Wesley Crusher. For you non-Trekkies (who have “lives” and “friends” and “parties” that keep you from watching Deep Space Nine every night and greeting every Star Trek reference with a nasal squeal of glee, like “Na-harr!”) Wesley Crusher was a teenager on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was the most inane, simpering character that’s ever been on any television show, ever. Every scene with that goddamn kid was more painful than being disemboweled by Kahless, the mightiest of Klingon warriors.

But I’ve always felt bad for the actor who played Wesley, Wil Wheaton. Wheaton gets a lot of shit from Wesley-hating Trekkies, and to have rabid hordes of obsessive geeks constantly berating you sounds like an excruciatingly nerdy version of Hell.

So I really wanted to like Wil Wheaton’s book, and humbly attempt to redeem him in the eyes of Trekkies everywhere. “His prose sparkles like a dilithium crystal!” I could write. “The only thing more enthralling is watching the rhythmic sway of Sub-Commander T’Pol’s bounteous Vulcan breasts!”

But I can’t. Wheaton’s book–which is made up of excerpts from his weblog, www.wilwheaton.net–just isn’t very good. Wheaton mostly writes about his family life in an earnest, unabashedly sentimental style. At first, it’s refreshing, but it quickly becomes grating and amateurish. The book’s also astonishingly brief, at just over 100 pages, with double spaces between paragraphs and a font that makes each letter the approximate size of Space Station Regula One.

Ever since he left Next Generation, Wheaton’s been trying to prove that he’s not Wesley Crusher, so it’s pretty ironic that the part of the book that works best is when he focuses on Trek. When he writes about his terrifying run-ins with hygienically-challenged Trekkies or all that Trek has done to and for him, Wheaton displays intelligence and charm. If the rest of Dancing Barefoot had similarly unique insights, it might have been better than what it is now: a glorified diary that’s about as easy to get through as piloting the Delta Flyer through the vast Delphic Expanse. Na-harr! ERIK HENRIKSEN