A Planet for Rent (2015) by Voss

Book Review

A Planet for Rent (2015)

by Voss

   Voss is the pen name for Cuban author Jose Sanchez Gomez. A Planet for Rent is the first book in his series about a post-contact Earth where humans are junior partners in a hyper-capitalist galactic civilization.   Like third world countries today, the Earth is exploited for its mineral resources, raw materials and labor.   I saw A Planet for Rent on a list of post-apocalyptic  literary dystopias, and it doesn't quite match that category, being more of a negative take on what an actual intergalactic civilization might be like.  I think, if you just look at the history of the Earth, people usually don't spend a ton of time and money going to someplace new to just show up and be like, "Hey, you guys are awesome let's hang out."  Either they need someplace new to live, or they are trying to expand where they live, or they need something we have or they have some kind of important cultural principle that impels them to reach out across the galaxy.

  Which is all to say that the hyper-capitalist world of giant lizard men and sentient jelly fish that Voss depicts- one part Blade Runner, one part Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, is worth getting to know, and it's an interesting example of non-English language science fiction.   Most of the books that could be classified as science fiction that are translated into English tend to be more literary fiction or experimental fiction than straight forward genre work.