Reviewed by Kristin
“The Earth has been sold. What
could possibly go wrong?”
Have you checked out some of the gems in Tennessee READS that
might not make it into print form in our library? Here is one such first-in-series
treasure that I enjoyed immensely.
Toby is just a guy who needs a new place to live. In London,
near the present day, Toby answers an ad for a flat-share. While trying to find
this potential roommate “Dave” at a pub, all the screens in the world begin to
broadcast an alert: “IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM DOWNING STREET AT 12 PM GMT, 1
PM BST – MAKE SURE YOU ARE NEAR A TELEVISION OR WIRELESS – DO NOT BE ALARMED…”
Of course, the world is alarmed.
The world countries have become so ridiculously in debt to
each other that no one is sure what currency holds what value or who will ever
collect on the debts. If only there was someone who could bail us out like a
governmental entity bailing out a bank…
Enter the Za-Nakarians. With their cute little planet-buying
representative sloshing about in his wheelie bin, they are here to help humanity with our money woes and
find a nice hospitable vacation spot for themselves. In the meantime, Toby is
thrown together with his potential roommates (Dave quickly known as “Paranoid
Dave”) and becomes intensely invested in trying to save the earth from the side
effects of becoming a pleasure planet for aliens.
Published in 2020 with references to the pandemic and a world
in chaos, this was a very entertaining romp through what could come from making
deals with extraterrestrial beings, or from our own climate-negligent human
actions. This was D.A. Holdsworth’s debut novel, but he next published a
prequel entitled The Zoo of Intelligent Animals which gives a little
history of some of the other characters in How to Buy a Planet.
