Christopher Buckley's satire Little Green Men (Harper, $13.00) leaves no target unscathed, whether it's the press, elected officials, government conspiracy-types or alien abduction survivors. It's a romp, and it's terribly fun.

Buckley, the son of conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., is best known for his 1994 comic novel Thank You for Smoking, which aimed its sights on the weird life within the Beltway. He knows Washington well, and this familiarity helps Little Green Men ring true.

However, this is not quite science fiction.

In the universe Buckley spins out, MJ-12 was established to fake the Cold War Russian government into thinking that the United States had taken advantage of alien technology.

Banion's decision to delve into UFOs destroys his Washington credibility. Questioning his sanity, his genteel admirers pull away. His wife, Bitsey, arranges an intervention.

Eventually, Banion loses his show and his wife, falling from the A-list into PR outer space.

Scrubbs fares little better -- he ordered Banion's abduction as a drunken impulse. His superiors in MJ-12 question the decision to harass a public figure, forcing the paranoid Scrubbs undercover.

Banion and Scrubbs are unlikely heroes. They're rude and self-serving, and think a bit much of themselves.

However, Banion's "abduction" experience transforms him, eventually driving him to seek real change in Washington. He becomes an unlikely champion of reform, a former insider forced out who reemerges as a force to be reckoned with.

The supporting characters are drawn from an array of Washington types. There's the doddering elder Senator, the chatty former member of the Russian military, the socialite wife, and the president concerned more with public opinion than policy.

Some of these characters are flat, never truly changing or doing more than fulfilling their expected tasks. This is not so much a flaw as a function of satire, which relies this approach for comic effect.