And since I love making them happy…
Long live threesomes, if they bring happiness. And the hell with all my prudish old intolerant ideas about exotic women, together with my equally misogynistic prejudices towards non-Homo sapiens females, humanoids or gynecoids, with yellow pupil-less eyes, cephalic crests, violet skin, six breasts, three-forked tongues, cartilaginous chewing plates—and oral sex as the main dish on their limited but sincere erotic menu.
Maybe it’s my professional success, but now we’re the main topic of gossip on all the holonews programs out of Gea. There’s also the fact that none of us is exactly tiny, so we three are hard to miss when we’re out walking around town, hand in hand.
But I don’t care. Let them talk, if that’s what they want.
We don’t care.
Now I can say I’ve tried everything.
And to my own surprise, I’ve discovered that sometimes different is synonymous with interesting.
That getting along and living in harmony takes more than tolerating difference. You have to go a little bit farther, you have to enjoy the diversity.
Polymorphous perverts? Lustful, lewd bisexuals? Sinners destined for the eternal fires of hell?
Bah. Could be. Except for the hell part, that is.
And so what?
It’s delightful.
Besides, are we hurting anybody, somehow?
Aren’t we adults, all three?
Why do people always try to force pleasure into such strictly human pigeonholes? Sin, propriety, perversity… Humph.
After all, strictly speaking, my “black panther” and I are the only actual couple in this ménage à trois. An, our common platonic partner (though sometimes a bit more than platonic, to tell the truth), is at most a “friend with touching privileges” for both of us, right?
Of course, the touching is oral… And, yes, they were right; it really is exquisite. For the record.
About the Author
Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez, YOSS assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David in the science-fiction category for Timshel. Together with his peculiar pseudonym, the author’s aesthetic of an impenitent rocker has allowed him to stand out among his fellow Cuban writers. Earning a degree in Biology in 1991, he went on to graduate from the first ever course on Narrative Techniques at the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Center of Literary Training, in 1999. Today, Yoss writes both realistic and science-fiction works. Alongside these novels, the author produces essays, reviews, and compilations, and actively promotes the Cuban science-fiction literary workshops Espiral and Espacio Abierto.
About the Translator
When he isn’t translating, DAVID FRYE teaches Latin American culture and society at the University of Michigan. Translations include The First New Chronicle and Good Government by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peru, 1615); The Mangy Parrot by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (Mexico, 1816), for which he received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Writing across Cultures: Narrative Transculturation in Latin America by Ángel Rama (Uruguay, 1982); and several Cuban and Spanish novels and poems.
About the Publisher
RESTLESS BOOKS is an independent publisher for readers and writers in search of new destinations, experiences, and perspectives. From Asia to the Americas, from Tehran to Tel Aviv, we deliver stories of discovery, adventure, dislocation, and transformation.
Our readers are passionate about other cultures and other languages. Restless is committed to bringing out the best of international literature—fiction, journalism, memoirs, poetry, travel writing, illustrated books, and more—that reflects the restlessness of our multiform lives.
Visit us at www.restlessbooks.com.
Praise for
A Planet for Rent
by Yoss
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Devastating and hilarious and somehow, amidst all those aliens, deeply deeply human.”