The plot [of Travels to the Enu] like that of Gulliver's Travels, is built around a sea journey, a shipwreck, a mysterious island and its even more mysterious inhabitants. Mr. Orlando, a London writer, unappreciated and therefore mildly bitter, signs up for a South Seas cruise on the S.S. Katherine Medici, a ship operated by Cosmic Ltd., "pioneers in social tourism." Once out of port, this little floating metaphor of the socialist experiment turns into a nightmare. Passengers are forced to serve the crew, possessions "disappear," and a few unfortunate souls are tried and executed for their most unsocial resistance. Through it all, Captain Gilbert Cook, convicted for gassing his entire family back in Jolly Old, exhorts the passengers to sacrifice everything for the good of the "entire community."

With a cruise like this, it seems like a positive stroke of good fortune when, late one night...