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A review by chamomiledaydreams
A Planet for Rent by Yoss
challenging
dark
medium-paced
4.0
"A Planet for Rent" is a disturbing yet fascinating read. I love how the vignettes make sly references to one another, so that the characters' stories can build over time, even when they're not the current protagonist. Ettubrute's arc especially intrigued me, and my opinion of him changed significantly as the novel progressed. It's fun when even your favorite characters have egregious flaws and/or moral deficits.
Not to mention, many of the vignettes have a unique form that reflects the narrative being told. I was struck by the question and answer session whose responses are written out of order. At first, I thought it was done arbitrarily, to force the reader to engage with the text on a deeper and more active level. But there turns out to be an in-universe explanation for this writing choice that made me want to read the vignette over again from the very beginning. The same thing happened with the story about the cops; I finally understood the second-person POV, the pure monologue, and the lack of quotation marks, and it made the story that much better.
I had never heard of Yoss before a friend lent me this book, but now I'm very interested in reading more of his works. If my Spanish were up to par, then I would delight in reading his stories in their original language. Maybe I'll be able to manage that with more confidence someday in the future! But for now, I'm content with the translation I read (although there were a handful of typos that made me think, "A work as good as this should have better proofreading, so the physical text is up to par with the quality of the story being told!").
Yoss's acknowledgements at the end of this novel made me think of the Ursula K. Le Guin quote from her introduction to "The Left Hand of Darkness": science-fiction is often more occupied with describing the present than it is with predicting any sort of future. Although the premise in "A Planet for Rent" is a great SF concept on its own (aliens colonize the Earth, and all humans become second-class citizens in an immense, intergalactic community), each vignette is grounded in reality and features exaggerated versions of things that can and do occur today (albeit in more mundane forms).
Not to mention, many of the vignettes have a unique form that reflects the narrative being told. I was struck by the question and answer session whose responses are written out of order. At first, I thought it was done arbitrarily, to force the reader to engage with the text on a deeper and more active level. But there turns out to be an in-universe explanation for this writing choice that made me want to read the vignette over again from the very beginning. The same thing happened with the story about the cops; I finally understood the second-person POV, the pure monologue, and the lack of quotation marks, and it made the story that much better.
I had never heard of Yoss before a friend lent me this book, but now I'm very interested in reading more of his works. If my Spanish were up to par, then I would delight in reading his stories in their original language. Maybe I'll be able to manage that with more confidence someday in the future! But for now, I'm content with the translation I read (although there were a handful of typos that made me think, "A work as good as this should have better proofreading, so the physical text is up to par with the quality of the story being told!").
Yoss's acknowledgements at the end of this novel made me think of the Ursula K. Le Guin quote from her introduction to "The Left Hand of Darkness": science-fiction is often more occupied with describing the present than it is with predicting any sort of future. Although the premise in "A Planet for Rent" is a great SF concept on its own (aliens colonize the Earth, and all humans become second-class citizens in an immense, intergalactic community), each vignette is grounded in reality and features exaggerated versions of things that can and do occur today (albeit in more mundane forms).