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.
