I picked up The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil at the library, not recognizing the author’s name but attracted to the cover. And how else can one judge a book? The author, by the way, is George Saunders, who wrote The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip as well as (evidently) a gazillion short stories of some renown. Great cover, though.
Anyway, there was a great, great idea at the front of the book. Inner Horner is a small country bordering Outer Horner on all sides, not unlike Vatican City within Italy. Except Inner Horner is very small. About a yard in diameter. Really only big enough for one person at a time. In fact, the six inhabitants of Inner Horner can only live in their homeland one day out of six, spending the other days in a sort of refugee camp in Outer Horner, waiting their turn to go home. Isn’t that brilliant? Aren’t there a zillion ways you could go from there?
Sadly, I don’t think that the way the actual book went is one of the better ways. The book was on the whole good, but mostly is was hectoring nonsense, cheap shots about the perfidy of politicians and the terrors of nationalism. I wasn’t enlightened, I wasn’t shocked, I was only intermittently amused. Still. What a premise, hunh? And a good cover, too.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.