praise for
a planet for rent
“A Planet for Rent is the English-language debut of Yoss, one of Cuba’s most lauded writers of science fiction. Translated by David Frye, these linked stories craft a picture of a dystopian future: Aliens called xenoids have invaded planet Earth, and people are looking to flee the economically and socially bankrupt remains of human civilization. Yoss’ smart and entertaining novel tackles themes like prostitution, immigration and political corruption. Ultimately, it serves as an empathetic yet impassioned metaphor for modern-day Cuba, where the struggle for power has complicated every facet of society.”
Juan Vidal, NPR, Best Books of 2015
“In prose that is direct, sarcastic, sexual and often violent, A Planet for Rent criticizes Cuban reality in thinly veiled terms. Cuban defectors leave the country not on rafts but on ‘unlawful space launches’; prostitutes are ‘social workers’; foreigners are ‘xenoids’; and Cuba is a ‘planet whose inhabitants have stopped believing in the future.” … The book is particularly critical of the government-run tourism industry of the ’90s, which welcomed and protected tourists—often at the expense of Cubans—and whose legacy can still be felt today.”
Jonathan Wolfe, The New York Times
“Some of the best sci-fi written anywhere since the 1970s…. Like its author, a bandanna-wearing, muscle-bound roquero, A Planet for Rent is completely sui generis: riotously funny, scathing, perceptive, and yet also heart-wrenchingly compassionate…. Instantly appealing.”
André Naffis-Sahely, The Nation
“This hilarious and imaginative novel by Cuba’s premiere science-fiction writer gets my vote for most overlooked novel of the year. Yoss’s book imagines a world where Earth is run as a tourist destination by capitalist aliens who have little regard for the planet or its inhabitants. A Planet for Rent is a perfect SF satire for our era of massive inequality and seemingly unchecked environmental destruction.”
Lincoln Michel, VICE
“A Planet for Rent is devastating and hilarious and somehow, amidst all those aliens, deeply human.”
Daniel José Older, author of Half-Resurrection Blues
“A compelling meditation on modern imperialism…. A fascinating kaleidoscope of vignettes…. A brilliant exploration of our planet’s current social and economic inequities…. Yoss doesn’t disappoint, sling-shotting us around the world and the galaxy…. Striking, detailed…. Yoss has written a work of science fiction that speaks to fundamental problems humans deal with every day. This is not just a story about alien oppression; it’s the story of our own planet’s history and a call for change.”
Rachel Cordasco, SF Signal, 4.5-star review
“What 1984 did for surveillance, and Fahrenheit 451 did for censorship, A Planet for Rent does for tourism…. It’s a wildly imaginative book and one that, while set in the future, has plenty of relevance to the present.”
Adam Ley-Lange, The Bookseller
“Cuba has produced an author capable of understanding science fiction by writing it like it’s rock and roll. Yoss is a thoughtful author who simply seems to understand his work and science fiction better than many of us.”
Ryan Britt, Electric Literature
“Read this if you liked: Stanislaw Lem, William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy…. An excellently written piece of sci-fi, with its rich world-building and well-crafted characters…. Yoss has told a fictional tale that rings all too true despite the aliens and spaceships. A Planet for Rent is science fiction of the highest caliber. It tells us to imagine a strange new world, and as we explore it we come to understand our own a little better.”
BH Shepherd, LitReactor
“[Yoss’s] work is modern, dynamic and yet deep and thoughtful…. There is a dark, almost bleak tone to the novel but with small sparks of hope, along with a good deal of dark humor…. It’s wildly inventive, imaginative fiction, with a real edge to the writing—there is an energy to the prose that is almost tangible and to get all this through a translation is nothing short of remarkable.”
Ant Jones, SFBook.com, Five-Star Review
“The true power of science fiction lies in its capacity to convey the reality of human existence, and the threats we face from internal and external sources, while using language, images, and concepts that transcend common experience. This could not be truer of A Planet for Rent by Cuban science fiction legend José Miguel Sánchez, better known as Yoss…. Highly relevant. Joining a literary tradition of writers who envisioned Earth’s future in terrifyingly comprehensible ways, such as H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley, and Margaret Atwood, Yoss’s portrayal of Earth’s dystopian downfall weaves together fantasy and reality—at times troublingly close to the latter…. Yoss skillfully weaves themes and characters together into a rich tapestry, and each section gives us a more fulfilling, and fearful, vision of a dominated Earth–now an intergalactic tourist destination.”
Rosie Clarke, Words Without Borders
praise for
Super Extra Grande
“Intergalactic space travel meets outrageous, biting satire in Super Extra Grande…. Its author [Yoss] is one of the most celebrated—and controversial—Cuban writers of science fiction…. Reminiscent of Douglas Adams—but even more so, the satire of Rabelais and Swift.”
Nancy Hightower, The Washington Post
“A lighthearted space-opera adventure by Cuban author Yoss…. This novel’s madcap tone is very similar to Douglas Adams’—so much so that it’s almost impossible to avoid drawing such comparisons (although Adams didn’t joke about oral sex with aliens, as Yoss does here). As in Adams’ works, the galaxy’s species are terrifically alien, sporting six breasts and no teeth or breathing methane instead of oxygen…. An exceptionally enjoyable comic tale set in a fully realized, firmly science-fictional universe.”
Kirkus, Starred Review
“Science fiction is a place where minority authors have brilliantly mixed the possibilities of the future with the sociopolitical problems of their time. Everything from politics and sexism to racism and the silence of the subaltern (the one Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak wrote about) have been explored within the context of a narrative that takes place in a fictional future. Cuban science fiction author Yoss’ Super Extra Grande does all these things…. [Yoss] marries hard science with wild invention and throws that mix into a hilarious, politically and sexually charged universe where all alien races have stopped
