Super Extra Grande

“A Planet for Rent is the English-language debut of Yoss, one of Cuba’s most lauded writers of science fiction… 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.”

—NPR, Best Books of 2015

“This hilarious and imaginative novel by Cuba’s premier 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

“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.”

—The New York Times

“Can one Cuban author boldly go where none have gone before and inspire American readers? Heavy metal rocker turned science fiction writer José Miguel Sánchez (known by his pen name, Yoss) believes he can… Science fiction fans… will be interested in the way Yoss addresses important questions about the future: Who are we? What does it matter to be human? And, what is our place in the universe?… Yoss’s novel is part of an international literary canon of science fiction classics that makes invisible walls visible by showing everyday readers how inequality segregates people by class, politics or ethnicity.”

—NBC News Latino

“The best science-fiction writers are the peripheral prophets of literature—outsiders who persuade us to explore an often uncomfortable vision of the future that shows us not only what might be, but also what should never be allowed to happen, thereby freeing our imaginations from the shackles of our blind rush toward so-called progress. One such prophet lives ninety miles off the coast of Florida, in Havana, and goes by the name of Yoss… Some of the best sci-fi written anywhere since the 1970s… A Planet for Rent, like its author, a bandana-wearing, muscly roquero, is completely sui generis: riotously funny, scathing, perceptive, and yet also heartwrenchingly compassionate… Instantly appealing.”

—The Nation

“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.”

—The Bookseller

“Devastating and hilarious and somehow, amidst all those aliens, deeply deeply human.”

—Daniel José Older, author of the Bone Street Rumba series and Salsa Nocturna

“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.”

—SF Signal, 4.5-Star Review

“Interesting and entertaining… deeply tied to the island nation’s politics with a satirical edge.”

—io9

“[Yoss’s] work is modern, dynamic and yet deep and thoughtful… 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.”

—SFBook.com, 5-Star Review

“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.”

—Electric Literature