The Übergeek. The Boy With All the Toys. The Lord of the Nerds. It might seem as if the most significant achievement of Jeffrey Jacob "JJ" Abrams, screenwriter, actor, producer, director, composer and author, is to have made fanboy culture part of the mainstream. But the publication of "his" first novel – more on those inverted commas anon – also shows that the avant garde and the experimental are in the ascendant. The fusion of popular culture and continental philosophy – works which are as au fait with Foucault as with the Flash, Boba Fett and Baudrillard, Kierkegaard and Kirk – are everywhere, from the novels of China Miéville, Michael Chabon and Scarlett Thomas, to the comics work of Grant Morrison and Mike Carey, to TV shows such as Agents of SHIELD. and The Big Bang Theory. The geeks have inherited the earth.
