SOURCE: Levi, Jonathan. “Shouts and Murmurs.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (28 March 1999): 6.

In the following review, Levi argues that the humor and satire in Little Green Men is too reserved and tame.

Back in the late 1970s, while a massive truckers' strike was choking the motor-ways of England, the House of Lords was debating the existence of UFOs and companion creatures like the Loch Ness monster, which, as one lord postulated, was created by the lesser cherubim and seraphim from leftover divine essence, much in the way “Mummy used to give us bits of extra dough to make those funny little men with sultanas for tummy buttons.”

As always, Britain was way ahead of the United States. But not ahead of Christopher Buckley. In his latest novel, Little Green Men, Buckley posits the existence of a super secret government agency dedicated to creating and maintaining a public belief...