Brit author’s ‘sleeper hit’ shows life if world leaders sold planet to aliens

British author Dom Holdsworth is breaking US book charts with bestseller satire "How To Buy a Planet", even pushing epic Hunger Games series off the children’s top spot.

Holdsworth's 'sleeper hit', which was written between 2016-2020, smartly focuses on the debt and inflation crises and foretells many of the economic pitfalls that have afflicted the world since the pandemic.

It starts on a day when the world wakes up to the leaders of the G7 announcing they've now sold the planet to some "cute" aliens, in order to "save" it while promising a debt-free future. And it's all down to three students to save it.

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"Essentially, it's a book about huge economic forces and ordinary people", said Dom.

The 49-year-old, a former funds manager trainee, confessed the idea for the book came "pretty quickly whilst lying on a hammock", after leaving the finance sector in 2002.

"It was right after the credit crunch and it was not the right environment for me. People, including myself, were angry at how the bankers got away with it. So I thought I should turn this anger into something funny."

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Holdsworth claimed satire and humour can help present serious issues in a "light package" and get through to people.

"Humour can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle."

He added his influences include British sci-fi writers, environmental economists and even Pixar films.

How To Buy A Planet, and its follow-up title, The Zoo Of Intelligent Animals, have both received huge success in the US with the author saying he feels "humbled".

"In a way, it was surprising and not so surprising at the same time because I knew the frustration I was feeling would be the same for other people too," he said.

His next novel, The Happiness Pill, due to be released next is about the discovery of a pill that can give people "enlightened happiness".

You can buy How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth (£11.99) on Amazon.

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