Little Green Men: A Novel

Reading Christopher Buckley's  Little Green Men  today is just as hilarious as when the satirical novel was released in 1999. This was during the Clinton presidency, and though the political scene has changed, a retrospective read of this title is a good one, if just for the characters involved. In that respect, it's a good successor to his tremendous 1994 satire  Thank You for Smoking .The author is one of our most gifted political satirists, and as in most of his other works, being an insider to Beltway politics helps. Right from the beginning, his protagonist sets the stage. John Oliver Banion is the television host of one of Washington's preeminent talk shows, with an argumentative style that will remind the reader of John McLaughlin. As this tale opens, Banion is grilling the U.S. President on issues surrounding NASA and the space program while trying to drum up votes. The dialogue is, of course, hilarious as one would expect from Buckley, but it's often his character and scene descriptions that are the perfect embellishment, as can be seen here:"Banion looked owlishly into the lens through his collegiate tortoiseshell eyeglasses. He seemed perpetually on the verge of smiling, without ever giving in to the impulse. He was in his late forties, but could have been any age. He had looked this way since his second year at Princeton. He had a round face that was handsome in a bookish sort of way. His graying blond hair was unstylishly cut, on purpose. He disdained salon haircuts as marks of unseriousness."Banion drills down hard on the President while on camera, trying to make a link between a NASA launch date that has been moved up to just before the upcoming presidential election. But one of the show viewers takes exception to Banion's attack on the space program.Nathan Scrubbs is working in the depths of the Social Security Administration building. He would be a mere flyspeck on the wall of any government scene, but he works for a bureaucracy known as MJ-12 (Majestic 12), a top secret agency created in 1948 to convince Josef Stalin that the United States had gotten ahold of alien technology. It's a government agency so secret that even the President is unaware of its existence. The agents of MJ-12 not only staged the first sighting of a UFO over Mount Rainier in 1947, but two weeks later produced the crash of the alien spacecraft in Roswell, New Mexico.During the years that followed, its mission had expanded. Now it whips up support for the space program by staging alien abductions of unsuspecting citizens and creating other features of the UFO craze. Considering that a good number of Americans believe that the government knows more about aliens than it is letting on, the people at MJ-12 continued to stage alien abductions, making them sexually interactive, and with overweight women from rural areas being their favored clients.Scrubbs has been passed over for promotion, and our anti-hero is stuck abducting chubby and bored housewives. Using his position, he orders an abduction of Banion, which appropriately occurs at Maryland's exclusive Burning Bush Country Club, and as a result Banion finds himself being probed by gray-skinned aliens. But Banion keeps quiet, holding his tongue as he's unwilling to lose his credibility and prestige. So Stubbs orders a second abduction, and the faux probing into his nether regions has the expected effect. Banion becomes a convert as a result, and though this leads to an abrupt decline in his influence in Washington, he becomes the leader of a national movement of fellow UFO abduction believers, ready to warn the country of impending alien colonization.There's much more in this fast-moving and riotous lampoon of the UFO conspiracy theories, and author Buckley's characters can be cameo appearances of real people, along with thinly-veiled others. Among them is Erhardt Williger, a former Secretary of Defense who has to be a thin disguise for Henry Kissinger, and it's his dialogue that will keep the reader laughing. There's Russian President Blebnikov, "drunk as a porcupine on brake fluid." And watch out for pseudo-defense expert Karl (last name intentionally left out for review posting), a "hugely successful writer of technological-thriller novels," who will be easily recognized by the reader.Little Green Men is said to be in development for film, possibly for 2013. One can only hope that Chris Buckley will have creative control and keep it intact. His newest satire is  They Eat Puppies, Don't They? , a convoluted satire regarding a rumor that the Chinese government is trying to poison the Dalai Lama, and one involving a fictional U.S. president, the CIA, the National Security Council, the president of China, and a Russian nicknamed Beluga.Political humor has changed since Buckley started out, but his  Little Green Men  still holds up well to this day. As usual, Buckley ties up all his loose ends in a clever conclusion and leaves the satisfied reader amused and informed about the weird workings of our government and conspiracy theories in general. It may not be his best work, but for this reviewer, it's still an old favorite.10/20/2012

Very enjoyable. I actually laughed out loud at peoples' names and parts of the storyline. I needed a novel as a break from my normal reading menu and this was just the ticket. Highly recommend. Four stars. Maybe five for the humor.

Christopher Buckley is one of my favorite authors. His works are irreverent and hilarious. This book is one of his best - like nothing you've ever read before. I read it years ago and just bought it again to reread it and then give it to my nephew. I highly recommend this book.

I became a fan of Buckley last year when I read his very funny book, Thank You For Smoking. So naturally, when Little Green Men arrived in paperback, I snapped it up. Little Green Men is about a pompous political talk-show host who gets abducted by aliens--twice--and then goes on a crusade to have congress open up hearings on the existence of UFO's. Buckley consistently makes me chuckle out loud while reading his books. If it's not the situations and characters themselves or his skeweringly funny footnotes, the very names he gives his fringe characters crack me up. For instance, the protagonist's talk show rivals are named Tony Flemm and Brent Boreman. I loved the first half of Little Green Men, but it slowed considerably in the second half before picking up again at the climactic finish. This book is only 300 pages long and I consumed it like candy. Little Green Men is a fun read but it's not quite as good as Thank You For Smoking. (2000)

I'll tell you something. I can believe this book much more easily than I can accept any of the other books that tell us that THEY are out there abducting our not so brave and brightest citizens. CB is his usual funny self as he tells us about UFOs and the machinations of the D.C. politicians. Buckley can't say anything with a straight face. On the flyleaf where his other books are listed we see that with a little help he wrote Moby Dick and Madame Bovary. His bio on the back states that he has been an advisor to Presidents since the Taft administration; also, his next book will refute the theories of Stephen Hawking.Congress is busy with hearings regarding a failed attempt by the CIA to attempt an assassination of the Canadian Prime Minister. Israel has just annexed Jordan. The sponsor of our protagonist's TV talk show wants him to promote their newest technological masterpiece: the all new XT-2000 electric chair to be demonstrated at the Florida penitentiary in Starke, Florida.And then it happens, an employee at a secret, secret government agency plays a prank that ultimately leaks the fact that the U.S. govmint is behind the "alien abductions."Read it. It's Buckley at his best...except I really didn't like the overall wind down toward the end of the book. Still, if you are a die-hard skeptic like me you should have some great laughs reading it.

Buckley does it again. Here is what REALLY happens with the Little Green Men, flying saucers and all those people being taken into space ships and probbed. You will get sore sides from laughing out loud and you will definitly look at the reports of space aliens in a new light. Buckley can capture the "reality" of fictional happenings like no one else and make it seems so possible. Once you read one of his books you'll be hooked on getting all of his works. I LOVE Christopher Buckley.

Author wrote a fun book which highlights the machinations and foibles of the questionable activities of the government. Written as a satire, it was truly fun.

Christopher Buckley has again written an imaginative and delightful entertainment, this time about UFOs and government conspiracies. His lighthearted style enhances the amusement and his well-crafted sentences support a carefully plotted story. He and his copy editors might shudder at some of the obviously typographical errors in grammar and punctuation so sadly common in e-books today. Buckley's books don't repeat themselves but they continue to vivify a unique satiric niche.

Hilarious!

J'ai découvert l'auteur, Christopher Buckler, en achetant par hasard son livre "Boomsday". Ce dernier m'ayant beaucoup diverti, j'ai ensuite lu "Little Green Men". Si ce livre est bien caractéristique de Buckley (histoire complètement délirante, des fulgurances hilarantes...), j'ai néanmoins été déçu par rapport à "Boomsday" qui reste pour moi le meilleur de l'auteur. "Little Green Men" reste cependant une agréable lecture.

I loved this quirky book - I thought the concept and original. It was really funny and the characters were fantastic. Well worth a read.