The Planet of Nuts

"The Planet of Nuts" is an ecological science-fiction book for young readers written in 1969, and published in Italy, France and Japan. It has now been published in 2017 for the first time in the English language. At the end of the Sixties, computers, called "electronic brains", were cumbersome devices, as large as side-by-side refrigerators. At the time, in fact, we were at the dawn of the Computer Age. The author of this book, basing himself on the scientific data of the time, but using above all his own imagination, envisions what life on Earth will be like in the not-so-distant future. Our ill-fated planet, by then, will have been plundered of its natural resources by its own inhabitants, will have been polluted, turned into desert, smoked, overheated, plasticized, nuclearized, drilled, and deforested, in an irrepressible race towards self-destruction. All the classic ingredients of science fiction can be found in this book: spaceships, futuristic cities, artificial farms, robots, mutants, and aliens. With a small difference. This time the aliens are not inhabitants of a faraway planet that have landed here in order to invade us. In this story we are the aliens, and the planet that we want to conquer is theirs. The book does not, in any case, relate these events with apocalyptic language. On the contrary, its narrative style is completely different: light, Ironic, often satiric, and biting at times. Its approach is humorous and understated, the story told with placidity, as though the insane exploits of a people, the Earthlings, were paradoxically normal. Man is, in fact, a living paradox. He is an angel and - at the same time - a devil, a genius and a fool, creator and destroyer. He is the most intelligent being on Earth, and nevertheless, a nutcase. To tell the truth, this book is dedicated - but only jokingly - to the crazy side of humans, to those who, instead of loving and respecting their wonderful blue planet, do everything possible, day after day, to transform it into an inhabitable place. But seriously speaking, the aim of this book is to remind everyone, nuts and sane people alike, of one certainty: in the universe there are more or less seven hundred quintillions of planets - an inconceivable number - but only one Earth. So, don't forget it; Earth is our one and only planet, and if we destroy or plunder it, we'll end up homeless Though written many years ago, the Planet of Nuts is, surprisingly, very relevant to our lives today. Actually, it is more pertinent than ever, because the nuts who plunder the Earth are still numerous and powerful, and refuse to understand that enough is enough. This book has received awards from "Futuribles International" and "Fondation Claude-Nicolas Ledoux", centers of future studies based in Paris.