Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is the first book from comedian Patton Oswalt.  It’s a collection of brand new material written just for this book, with the exception of one bit.  It’s comprised of various essays, mostly autobiographical, with a few purely comic ones thrown in like a mini comic about 2 vampires.

Lately it seems like every other week there’s another book like this coming out, like Sarah Silverman’s excellent Bedwetter.  So it’s easy to get suspicious of their quality.  But with a talent like the brilliant Patton Oswalt I pre-ordered this on my Kindle as soon as it was announced.  Patton is an incredibly great comedian and he’s shown he can bring drama with acting roles in Dollhouse and his starring turn in Big Fan.  He’s also shown he can write with his Serenity Float Out comic.  If you’re into things like comics and sci-fi you’re probably already a fan.

So I found myself a little surprised that I didn’t love this book.  That’s not to say I didn’t like it.  I actually quite enjoyed it.  I guess it just didn’t live up at some points to what it could have been.  It felt like there were points where Patton was trying to enter some more serious territory but it didn’t quite click.  And a few of the essays just sort of fell flat for me.  But overall I enjoyed it.  In fact I read the whole thing in one sitting.

The best stuff I found to be, besides his recounting of working at a movie theater as a teenager, focused on his comedy career, and comedy in general.  There’s one great part where he talks about the 3 types of comics he used to open for and then gives examples of their acts throughout the 80′s and early 90′s year by year.  Then he flashes forward to a more recent time when he comes back home and he runs into these comedians again but under different circumstances and how their lives turned out and it’s very interesting and actually touching.

Another highlight for me was where he details a particularly hellish week spent at a comedy club in the Vancouver suburbs that rings really true and manages to be incredibly depressing and hilarious at the same time.

You would have expected a little more “geeky” stuff in this book based on Patton’s act and his persona but there isn’t much discussion of things like that here.  Of course there’s a ton of references but mostly it stays away from dwelling on anything too niche.

I do recommend this and it’s a quick read, but it’s not a total masterpiece.  Maybe it was just my expectations.

Also available on audiobook from and
.