Little Green Men **

** Little Green Men, Christopher Buckley, 1999

My Buckley source told me that Little Green Men was the best. I finally picked up a copy and found that I must respectfully disagree. Like other Buckley novels, it is zany and erudite, but I felt like I never got below the surface on any of the characters, not even the protagonist. A lot of the character reactions seemed contrived or obvious, as if Buckley was taking the easy way out, almost phoning it in.

Also, I found one mistake. A UFO convention is set in Austin and the protagonist looks down from his high-rise hotel across Lake Austin. The problem is that the portion of the Colorado River that runs through town was called Town Lake at the time. Now it's called Ladybird Lake. Lake Austin is further west.