Zombie Spaceship Wasteland

A Book by Patton Oswalt

By: Patton Oswalt

Narrated by: Patton Oswalt

Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Prepare yourself for a journey through the world of Patton Oswalt, one of the most creative, insightful, and hysterical voices on the entertain­ment scene today. Widely known for his roles in the films Big Fan and Ratatouille, as well as the television hit The King of Queens, Patton Oswalt—a staple of Comedy Central—has been amusing audiences for decades. Now, with Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, he offers a fascinating look into his most unusual, and lovable, mindscape.

Oswalt combines memoir with uproarious humor, from snow forts to Dungeons & Dragons to gifts from Grandma that had to be explained. He remem­bers his teen summers spent working in a movie Cineplex and his early years doing stand-up. Readers are also treated to several graphic elements, includ­ing a vampire tale for the rest of us and some greeting cards with a special touch. Then there’s the book’s centerpiece, which posits that before all young creative minds have anything to write about, they will home in on one of three story lines: zom­bies, spaceships, or wastelands.

Oswalt chose wastelands, and ever since he has been mining our society’s wasteland for perversion and excess, pop culture and fatty foods, indie rock and single-malt scotch. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is an inventive account of the evolution of Patton Oswalt’s wildly insightful worldview, sure to indulge his legion of fans and lure many new admirers to his very entertaining “wasteland.”

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2011 Simon & Schuster (P)2011 Lord Loudoun, Inc

Critic reviews

"Patton Oswalt is a brilliant rarity; a relentlessly creative and original comic who is also a superb writer. If you don’t buy this book you are a fool and I will, I swear, fight you.” (Conan O’Brien)

Fans of Patton Oswalt’s standup comedy have always known he was a born writer at heart, and now here’s the proof. This is a surprisingly affecting, sincere and daresay vulnerable collection of essays, all keenly observed, always very funny.” (Dave Eggers)

“Perfect—I can describe Patton’s book the same way I describe his stand up—brilliant and prolific, I am slackjawed, amazed, and left feeling both inspired and fraudulent.” (Sarah Silverman)

“Patton Oswalt is among the funniest on-stage talking humans I am aware of, so it annoys me deeply that he is also an incredibly talented writer. It annoys me, but it does not surprise me. Every sentence in this book is funny (except for the sad ones), but it also brims with Oswalt-ian smarts and surprising poignancy.” (John Hodgman)

An enjoyable listen

The narration was fantastic. The content was sometimes confusing but so what. I enjoyed it. Esp. liked the hobo lore.

The very best.

The very best. I didn't expect the hobo poetry to be set to music. I choked with laughter when I first read it. This is real audio art.

It's deep. Deal with it.

OK, yeah, this isn't a laff-a-minute book. If you're familiar with Patton Oswalt's writing about pop culture and geek culture, you know there's more to him than screeching (hilariously!) about KFC.

This isn't Oswalt as stand-up comic; this is Oswalt as a capital-W Writer and a graceful, capable, observant storyteller. The guy's got heart, wit, skill, a real sense for the emotional core of a story, the courage to be unflinchingly candid and vulnerable, wry self-awareness, and miles of pop culture knowledge. The comic stories are hilarious, but the memoir-style stories of childhood and working in comedy are what really stuck with me. He's a great reader, too; his performance of the text is natural and charming.

I got the audiobook thinking I'd like it, but I guessed wrong -- I LOVED it. I've listened to it four or five times by now, and sure, some of the freshness has worn off from the repeated listening, but I can't stop admiring the craftsmanship of his writing.

And personally, I don't mind the REM quotes, because Oswalt is so obviously gleeful to have one of his heroes on his audiobook. Imagine your best friend squealing with excitement about a dream come true -- it's totally charming.

Fantastic

This is essential for fans of Patton, as well as insight in growing up, finding strength in weird places over the struggles we have as humans. It even has chapters that work as small sketches. This could really only work as an audiobook, Patton's narration as well as guests voices and the inflection for the sketches add so much more than simply reading it.

Parts Are Excellent

And some are not. The title chapter is excellent. Some others are interesting. Some are really unlistenable.
Not nearly as good as Silver Screen Fiend.
But Patton is a pleasure to listen to always.

Read ‘Silver Screen Fiend’ Instead

This one lacks a thematic core and wanders around. His follow up book is great, though.

Music to my ears

I have happily re-listened to this brief yet entertaining piece in the range of tens of times. His voice is lulling and his point of view unique. It's like his memoir mixed with random imagined musings. Anyone who hangs out with Maynard is clearly the man. If you're already Patton fan you'll like this.

Engrossing performance, rich production.

I expected to only like this audio book, not love it. I'm delighted to report that the latter was true, due to a surprisingly theatrical performance by the author, and a refreshingly thoughtful audio production.

I've always been a fan of Patton's stand-up comedy, and while his delivery and fresh approach to bit concepts always keeps me laughing, there are times when those qualities are solely what holds my attention, as the nearer to nerd-dom the subject matter gets, the harder I have to push my brain to stay focused. This isn't to say that D&D and sci-fi fantasy isn't a good comedic premise, I know it relates to a lot of people, but through some chemical imbalance in my brain as soon as I hear the words "wizard", "zombie", or "Star Wars" I switch into nap mode and find it hard to... I literally just yawned. The fact that the book title is made entirely of my personal bummer themes kept me from downloading the thing for a couple weeks, but eventually my appreciation for Patton's comedy won out, and I'm damn sure glad it did.

Don't get me wrong, this audio book is nerdy. If you love nerd things, especially early science fiction novels, retro alien flicks, and Fugazi (bonus drinking game potential here. take a shot every time the band is mentioned and there's a good chance you'll finish the audio book with your head in the toilet), you'll love it. Nothing that makes me love this audio book will make you dungeon masters dislike it. The real saving grace for me personally was the sheer quality of the delivery. I shouldn't be surprised, having (legally) downloaded all of Patton's albums, I'm familiar with his ability to turn the uninteresting (changing diapers, KFC, etc...) into the riveting, but what I expected to be a push through the sci-fi to the good stuff turned out to be the first time I've ever been intrigued by geek talk. Oswalt's reading performance was energetic at the peaks, measured and suspenseful when appropriate, and at times downright poetic. Halfway through the first chapter I forgot it was an audio book and realized I was listening to it more as a solo theater show, or monologue.

Coupled with a refreshing laissez faire approach to the reading (a couple minor speech hiccups or stammers were preserved, and chapter introductions were, if not improvised, convincingly scripted) was a keen production sense. Audio cues were sparse but appropriately timed, bonus audio content was a real treat. That being said, you could almost hear the producer in the background, leaving the booth to go for coffee as Patton ran his own show. The lack of over-direction is something I wish more audio books would aim for. Too often the forced find-and-replace transition from written text to audio book ("thank you for readi--I mean, listening to this boo--I mean, audio book.") is made even worse by an inflexibility of the producer, and the end product sometimes feels more like a computer text annotator than a performance by the author.

I could go on... so I will.

The real genius here is that Patton doesn't really have much to say. This is less a memoir than it is a collection of short story premises drawn from experience, on which Oswalt builds a rich and intriguing set, careful to fill in every detail, but with an efficiency that keeps each beat fresh. One story has little to do with the other, and it really doesn't matter. Oswalt could publish 6 more of these before he should ever feel the need to "look back" and tie it all together. Where do I pre-order?

Bonuses to look forward to:

-Disgustingly hilarious Hobo songs
-The best translation of visual humor to audio format (greeting cards read aloud)
-Michael freaking Stipe

Great for Patton fans

I'm a huge fan of Patton, and this is a repeat listen for me anytime I need a fix of his humor. Highly recommended.

#Funny #Witty #Autobiographical #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

If you love Patton Oswalt, then you will like this

Honestly, I thought it was going to be a comedic book in a science fiction style of world. It was just a book about his life. Not that I hate that, I still think it was cool. Especially since I really like him. However, if you are not a fan of him then I don't recommend getting this book.