The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is a political satire in the tradition of Jonathan Swift or Lewis Carroll. While the biomechanical inhabitants of Inner and Outer Horner are quite amusingly described, (I particularly enjoyed the depiction of THE MEDIA), a good satire should attempt some higher statement than "politics is a pursuit of incompetent and absurdist blowhards" or "petty nastiness leads to great evil." Not that this is a bad book per se, it could just use more ambition.