Super Extra Grande

Yoss and David Frye | 3.35 | 725 ratings and reviews

Ranked #79 in Cuban

The winner of the 20th annual UPC Science Fiction Award in 2011, the Cuban science fiction master Yoss delivers a space opera of intergalactic proportions in Super Extra Grande. Set in a distant future, the novel features creatures of immense variety—Amoebas that cover entire worlds, sensual females that feed on substances from their males’ reproductive systems, talking reptiles, and other creations drawn from the classics of Cuban and international science fiction—all of which serve as colleagues, fellow adventurers, sex partners, teachers, or members of the military high command in the Galactic Commonwealth governing this part of the universe. Our protagonist, Jan Amos Sangan Dongo, has a special role in this otherworldly menagerie: He is a veterinarian who specializes in treating enormous animals across the galaxy.

Coupling his own extensive studies in (earthly) biology with his vast curiosity and wild imagination, Yoss brings us a rare specimen in the richly parodic tradition of Cuban science fiction.

“One of the most prestigious science fiction authors of the island.”
—On Cuba Magazine

"A gifted and daring writer."
—David Iaconangelo

"José Miguel Sánchez [Yoss] is Cuba’s most decorated science fiction author, who has cultivated the most prestige for this genre in the mainstream, and the only person of all the Island’s residents who lives by his pen.”
—Cuenta Regresiva

Born José Miguel Sánchez Gómez, Yoss assumed his pen name in 1988, when he won the Premio David Award in the science fiction category for Timshel. Together with his peculiar pseudonym, the author's aesthetic of an impentinent rocker has allowed him to stand out amongst 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 the year 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. less

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