Venomous Lumpsucker: A Novel
by Ned Beauman
🏆 Winner of the 2023 Arthur C Clarke Award for Science Fiction
Recommendations from our site
“This book is set in a near future where human-led environmental degradation and climate catastrophe are the central focus of the plot, and the eponymous Lumpsucker is just one of the many critically endangered species being ruthlessly traded for extinction credits (a tradable stock-like asset companies acquire specifically in order to legally cover themselves should their resource extraction terminate a species). If that brief description sounds brutal, I can only agree. This is a dark, satirical, deeply angry book about our species. It’s also eminently readable, oddly hopeful at times, and very, very funny. I’d be tempted to compare Ned Beauman’s humour here to our sci-fi satirist grandmaster Douglas Adams, or maybe, more specifically, his evil twin.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction of 2023: The Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist
Tom Hunter, Journalist