In a fictional, yet familiar world that occasionally intersects our own, we listen in as aspiring authoritarian leader, Hugo Sensationist, persuades rising liberal star, Troy Laboy, to switch sides. In the process we get to consider the many different times that the nation of Everything could have stopped being great, all the time highlighting the huge unfairness in society.

Surely the recipe for a dark and dull, yet worthy snoozefest. Nope, they’re an oddball pair who swing effortlessly between wisdom and stupidity, ensuring a gutbustingly funny and greased easy read to make even the least questioning of us ask, “Whose side am I on?”

If you reach the end and aren’t cheering for the losers, you’re clearly one of the sleazy, grubbing upper-class barstewards who’ve been laughing at the rest of us for 12,000 years. Congratulations, but it just ain’t funny anymore.