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Overview
The strange land of Washington, D.C., is teeming with aliens, politicians, and other bizarre life-forms. Beltway insider and stuffy talk show host John Oliver Banion finds his privileged life turned topsy-turvy when he is abducted by aliens from his exclusive country-club golf course. When he is abducted a second time, he believes he has found his true calling and, in the most pasionate crusade of his life, demands that Congress and the White House seriously investigate the existence of extraterrestrials and UFOs. Friends and family, meanwhile, urge Banion to seek therapy before his reputation is ruined for good.
A comic tour de force from "one of the best and surest political humorists in America" (Los Angeles Times Book Review), Little Green Men is an uproacious comedy of manners that proves once and for all that the truth is out there. Way out there.
Synopsis
The strange land of Washington, D.C., is teeming with aliens, politicians, and other bizarre life-forms. Beltway insider and stuffy talk show host John Oliver Banion finds his privileged life turned topsy-turvy when he is abducted by aliens from his exclusive country-club golf course. When he is abducted a second time, he believes he has found his true calling and, in the most pasionate crusade of his life, demands that Congress and the White House seriously investigate the existence of extraterrestrials and UFOs. Friends and family, meanwhile, urge Banion to seek therapy before his reputation is ruined for good.
A comic tour de force from "one of the best and surest political humorists in America" (Los Angeles Times Book Review), Little Green Men is an uproacious comedy of manners that proves once and for all that the truth is out there. Way out there.
LA Times Book Review
One of the best and surest political humorists in America.
Editorials
People Magazine
A close encounter of the funniest kind.Andrew Stuttaford
...[V]ery funny....As we discover, the UFO nation is not a small one. In fact, you are living in it....Could Buckley...be part of the conspiracy? —National ReviewFortune
He is the quintessentiaol political novelist of our time....a breezy, addictive read...Playboy
The finest comic novelist working today.Ron Charles
...A prankster's greatest fantasy....A decidedly bawdy book, with that classic Monty Python mixture of highbrow satire and lowbrow ribaldry.— The Christian Science Monitor
Deirdre Donahue
Alas, while Buckley's new satire, Little Green Men, offers some laugh-out-loud moments, it deteriorates half-way into amusing shtick.... It sputters out rather than builds to a conclusion. Like a sighted UFO.— USA Today
LA Times Book Review
One of the best and surest political humorists in America.From The Critics
...[A] hilarious and playful satire....[P]rovides all the topical allusions and one-liners Buckley's readers have come to expect.Publishers Weekly -
Celebrity trials, populist bile and "The X-Files" get the Buckley skewer in this fast-paced satire. John O. Banion is an acerbic journalist, a talk-show host, a D.C. insider — and proud of it. MJ-12 is a secret federal program (based on a real-life program of the same name) that stages alien abductions to maintain popular support for military spending and space exploration. When he is "probed" by "aliens" at a golf course, Banion becomes a true believer in UFOs. Ostracized by the D.C. establishment, he uses his TV show to organize millions of UFO cultists (the "Millennium Men"), who gather on the Mall (the "Millennium Man March") and just may bring down the government.Consistently hilarious and painfully topical, the novel can resemble a series of stand-up comedy routines; it's dense with one-liners, inside jokes, mini-exposes and tangential riffs on peripheral characters, from FBI men to Larry King. But Buckley's plot is no drawing-room farce: he envisions national catastrophes, convergences of millions of people, the stuff of big-budget disaster movies and spy thrillers. His wit-above-all style combines with his ambitious plot to flatten his characters: the few sympathetic relationships — between a refugee secret agent and his down-home fisherman protector, or between Banion and a sexy UFO crusader — seem out of place, little lumps of feeling in an otherwise smooth, cool gelatin of extended banter. By the time the climactic courtroom scenes have tied up the subplots, the novel seems both hurried and cluttered: half monologue, half screenplay.
Buckley delivers the irreverent comedy his fans are looking for, but those seeking more complexity from their political fiction, or more three-dimensional characters, may feel, well, alienated.
Library Journal
Mark Linn-Baker delivers a first-rate performance in this uproarious take on life inside the Beltway. John Oliver Banion, pompous Washington, DC, television talk-show host and columnist, is very proud of his powerful position on the social "A-list." Even the President of the United States must endure Banion's barbs on air and then attend a dinner party at his home later that week. However, Banion's urbane life is turned upside down when he is unceremoniously abducted and probed by aliens at his posh country club. What Banion doesn't know is that the "aliens" are really government agents who work for Majestic 12, an agency that fakes abductions in order to maintain public support for defense and space programs. Vastly different from Majestic 12's usual abductees, who are "just credible enough to spread the word but not so respectable that their testimony would precipitate urgent search for the truth," Banion galvanizes UFO believers and launches a crusade for government hearings into the alien situation. This well-written political and social satire from the author of Wry Martinis is highly recommended for all popular collections.--Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Jon Meacham
...[I]t is high testament indeed to Christopher Buckley's extraordinary talent that he has once again produced a terrific Beltway novel....The fact that a man who has spent years pondering Washington can so easily evoke the world of alien obsession and UFO believers should give the capital some pause, I would think.— The Washington Monthly
Andrew Stuttaford
...[V]ery funny....As we discover, the UFO nation is not a small one. In fact, you are living in it....Could Buckley...be part of the conspiracy?— National Review
Mordecai Richler
...Buckley pulls [Washington political satire] off very nicely...at breakneck speed, but he is also stymied now and then by...the very richness of the pudding at hand....[T]he true strength of this witty, high-spirited romp is its whirlwind plot....It is clearn on just about every page...that Christopher Buckley had enormous fun writing [this book].— The New York Times Book Review
The New Yorker
...[A] fine comic confection...Buckley's satire is poised—always sharp but never sour.—