PANDEMONIUM ON THE POTOMAC

by William C. Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 1966

All the martinis of Thorne Smith and all the plot twists of The Twilight Zone may not make a good novel, but they will keep you reading in a dazed kind of fashion. This is again that sci-fi satire combination (cf. the earlier Adam M-I and Penelope) in which a Venusian and his daughter arrive by Volkswagen-shaped spaceship to make the President disarm all nuclear warheads. We have tilted the planet with our experiments and set it off course; it may collide with our nearest neighbor, Venus. From then on the military establishment takes over with crucial scenes of television phoning between the White House and the Kremlin which will instantly bring Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe to mind although this has no biting edge or moral purpose. There is an occasional funny scene, or line: cf. the Pentagon directive ""The attached memorandum was sent you for coordination by mistake. Please erase your initials and initial your erasure."" Like a Grade-C movie with a few Grade-A laughs.

Pub Date: June 2, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1966

Categories: FICTION