Red Dust

From beloved Cuban science fiction author Yoss comes a bitingly funny space-opera homage to Raymond Chandler, about a positronic robot detective on the hunt for some extra-dangerous extraterrestrial criminals. 


On the intergalactic trading station William S. Burroughs, profit is king and aliens are the kingmakers. Earthlings have bowed to their superior power and weaponry, though the aliens—praying-mantis-like Grodos with pheromonal speech and gargantuan Collosaurs with a limited sense of humor—kindly allow them to do business through properly controlled channels. 


That’s where our hero comes in, name of Raymond. As part of the android police force, this positronic robot detective navigates both worlds, human and alien, keeping order and evaporating wrongdoers. But nothing in his centuries of experience prepares him for Makrow 34, a fugitive Cetian perp with psi powers. Meaning he can alter the shape of the Gaussian bell curve of statistical probability—making it rain indoors, say, or causing a would-be captor to shoot himself in the face. Raymond will need all his training—and all his careful study of Chandler’s hardbitten cops—to outmaneuver his quarry. 


As he did in his brilliantly funny and sharp science-fiction satires A Planet for Rent, Super Extra Grande, and Condomnauts, Yoss makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar in Red Dust, giving us an unforgettable half-human hero and a richly imagined universe where the bad guys are above the laws of physics.


Praise for Red Dust:


“Cuban sf writer Yoss adds a dash of detective noir to his latest space opera…. Yoss has created inventive and dimensional characters within a meticulously orchestrated, richly detailed, world-building mystery that will appeal to Terry Pratchett fans.”

—Adrienne Cruz, Booklist

“A wild ride from the first page, Red Dust is a highly entertaining space opera indebted to classic detective fiction…. Like Super Extra Grande, Red Dust showcases Yoss’s talent for deadpan humor mixed with some of the most outrageous alien species you’ll ever read about…. You have to hand it to translator David Frye, who perfectly captured the pitch of this unusual space opera.”

—Rachel Cordasco, Speculative Fiction in Translation


“This inventive novel is stuffed full of attitude and characters that leap off the page…. chock-full of clever twists and turns. Bonus at the end: I guarantee you’ll close the book with a great big smile on your face.”

—Kay Wosewick, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)


About the Author:


Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez in Havana, Cuba, in 1969, Yoss assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David in the science-fiction category for Timshel. Since then, he has gone on to become one of Cuba's most iconic literary figures—as the author of more than twenty acclaimed books, as a champion of science fiction through his workshops in Cuba and around the world, and as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Tenaz. His four novels translated into English are A Planet for Rent, Super Extra Grande, Condomnauts, and Red Dust.


About the Translator:


When he isn’t translating, David Frye teaches Latin American culture and society at the University of Michigan. Translations include First New Chronicle and Good Government by Guaman Poma de Ayala (Peru, 1615); The Mangy Parrot by José Joaquín Fernandez 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.