Saturday, August 13, 2011

#36: Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt

I was only tangentially aware of comedian Patton Oswalt (mostly from the movie Big Fan, which I learned about at the Traverse City Film Festival) but by the end of this collection of personal essays and humorous stories felt as if we were brothers under the skin.   

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is largely about a misspent youth of Dungeons and Dragons, comic books, b-movies, and the like, written in a darkly humorous vein.  I especially liked an essay about working in a movie theater in the 80s, one about working at the bottom of the comedian food chain, and an epic poem written to his last D&D character.  The title comes from an essay about how every young dude will write a story that either involves zombies, spaceships, or wastelands; I had all three in me as a teen.

I would recommend this book by and large to a narrow audience of nerds about the same age as me and Patton Oswalt, but I think it would have some general appeal.  I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library after the title caught my eye and read the slender tome at a good clip.

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