I’ll make this brief: Oswalt is brilliant, and is a gifted writer, but he allows his comic sensibilities to get in the way here. The memoir portions of this collection of essays and assorted other bits are very strong, and I’d love to see more of that kind of thing from him — God knows he’s good at it, and it seems likely he’s got more such stories.

But what drags this book down are the filler bits where it feels like he’s trying to force standup material into essay form. He actually addresses this in the book, saying explicitly that he’s insecure about the personal essay portions and hopes to do more of them in the future as his comfort level increases; I hope so, too. I’d happily buy and read more. As for the rest, I found myself skimming rather than savoring those parts of this otherwise solid debut.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland at Amazon.