SOURCE: Stuttaford, Andrew. “Contact.” National Review 51, no. 7 (19 April 1999): 65-6.

In the following review, Stuttaford examines the political satire and humorous situations in Little Green Men.

Space aliens are a nasty, bug-eyed lot, always plotting to subjugate the galaxy and firing off death rays. Not much use to us humans, you might think. But you would be wrong. As a plot device, the extraterrestrial can be most useful, a light shone on the peculiarities of this planet. And so, in his latest, and very funny, novel, [Little Green Men,] Christopher Buckley employs a motley and distinctly home-grown bunch of ETs to take a look at a close encounter between two different worlds, both of which happen to be located here on Earth.

His hero, John Banion, is a king of the first of these worlds, Beltway Washington: a prince of pundits, a griller of presidents, his Sunday-morning show a...