A Planet for Rent

<b>Out of the modern-day dystopia of Cuba comes an instant classic from the island's most celebrated science fiction author: a raucous tale of a future in which a failing Earth is at the mercy of powerful capitalist alien colonizers.</b><br><br>One of the most successful, decorated, and controversial science fiction writers in Cuba, Yoss (a.k.a. José Miguel Sánchez Gómez) is known as much for his unrepentant rock-and-roll aesthetic as for his acerbic portraits of the island under Communism. <br> <br>In his bestselling <i>A Planet for Rent</i>, Yoss critiques '90s Cuba by drawing parallels with a possible Earth of the not-so-distant future. Wracked by economic and environmental problems, the desperate planet is rescued, for better or worse, by alien colonizers, who remake the planet as a tourist destination. Ruled over by a brutal interstellar bureaucracy, dispossessed humans seek better lives via the few routes available - working for the colonial police; eking out a living as black marketeers, drug dealers, or artists; prostituting themselves to exploitative extraterrestrial visitors - or facing the cold void of space in rickety illegal ships. <br> <br>This inventive and raucous book marks the English-language debut of an astonishingly brave and imaginative Latin American voice.