Animal Planet

Comparisons to Animal Farm may inevitably trail this novel, but this arch fable offers neither the political complexity nor the biting social satire of Orwell's classic. Instead, the narrative wanders uneasily between farce and social criticism, settling comfortably into neither. Here, the instigator of animal revolution is one Charlie the Crow, whose incendiary political commentary rouses the inmates of a London zoo to riot. (``You can't expect the public to continue paying your bills forever,'' the animals are told.) The disturbance is quelled, but the animals' consciousness has been raised; heeding raucous Charlie's exhortation to ``be goddamn articulate,'' they learn to speak in words, and they venture into the human world, taking jobs and establishing relationships across species boundaries. Charlie flees to Antarctica, where in the company of Buster the Penguin, Rick the Husky and Muk Luk, a sexually aggressive Eskimo, he tries to warn his fellow creatures about the dangers of human politics. Meanwhile, marketing agent Bunny Fairchild sells the rights for Charlie's story for millions; a wildebeest named Scaramangus disseminates anti-Charlie propaganda; and renegade soldiers set out to hunt down Charlie and his friends. Instead of genuinely inventive satire, Bradfield (What's Wrong with America) settles for a series of cheap jokes, launching broadsides at numerous targets but hitting very few. (Oct.)