The greatest difficulty in writing good comedy is the successful combination of the absurd and the believable, and Buckley does so superbly. His havoc-ridden alternate present is peopled with characters that are zany but never annoying and situations that are outlandish without being unrecognizable.

Buckley's story of a disgruntled young blogger fighting (or adding to?)the madness of an America taxed to its eyeballs to keep a generation of retired babyboomers in professional golf equipment and mauseoleums that rival the Pyramids is one of the best comic novels I've ever read.

Hell hath no fury like a “Gen-Whatever” scorned, and in Christopher Buckley’s 12th book, “Boomsday,” Cassandra Devine has decided she ain’t gonna take it anymore.

Cass is a self-made woman: Her father used her college fund for his failing dotcom, thereby postponing her admission into Yale. He suggests that she go into the Army because they will pay for her college when she gets out. While serving in Bosnia, Cass is assigned to escort Congressman Randolph Jepperson to the Special Forces camp to visit with the soldiers.

The Congressman convinces Cass to let him drive, and he steers them off-road and into a minefield. Cass is injured but makes a full recovery, however Jepperson loses part of his leg. Jepperson returns a war hero, and Cass is unceremoniously discharged, sans her college-tuition money.

Fast-forward 10 years, and Cass is a 29-year-old public-relations specialist who just happens to author one of the most popular underground blogs to hit Washington D.C. since Wonkette. She is mad as hell that the baby boomers are sucking the life blood out of the National Treasury, noting that at the rate boomers are retiring, Social Security will run out of funds decades before her generation even thinks about retirement. She concocts a “modest proposal” whereby boomers can voluntarily commit suicide at a certain age, guaranteeing their next of kin generous benefits for their sacrifice.

The nation is up in arms, and Cass finally has people addressing her concern regarding the National Debt. The next step: Get someone in Congress on her side. Someone who owes her a favor for keeping her mouth shut about the Bosnian minefield.

With same snarky humor and intelligent arguments Buckley employed in his best-selling novel “Thank You For Smoking,” “Boomsday” can be a scary look down the path that previous generations have set up for the future. But it gets the reader thinking – these are things that can be changed if we act now.

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Typican Buckley brilliance. America's foremost political and social satirist has done it again. As good, if not better, than the classics that came before it.

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