The diversity of life on earth was (as far as anyone knew) the most majestic thing in the universe, and human beings were (as far as anyone knew) the only living things with the capacity to appreciate that majesty, and yet human beings were also the ones who were stamping that majesty out, not deliberately but carelessly, incidentally, leaving nothing behind but a few scans and samples that nobody would ever look at. [p. 119]
Hilarious, mournful and eminently quotable, Venomous Lumpsucker is a technothriller with strong ecological and climate-crisis themes, focussing initially on the plight of the (fictional) eponymous fish -- possibly the most intelligent fish on earth, assuming its last remaining breeding ground in the Baltic hasn't been destroyed by a misdirected mining operation.
Our protagonists are Mark Halyard, an Australian environmental impact coordinator working for the Brahmasamudram Mining Company (and surreptitiously engaging in a little short-selling of 'extinction credits') and Karin Resaint, a Swiss-German biologist contracted by Brahmasamudram to assess the intelligence of the venomous lumpsuckers. If the fish aren't intelligent, it will cost fewer extinction credits if they're wiped off the face of the earth. Halyard argues that it won't matter: their DNA is backed up in biobanks. But then the biobanks are destroyed ...
I don't propose to recount the twists and turns of this engaging, headlong novel (though I will say how pleased I was that Beauman eschewed any cheap romantic element). Instead, I'll observe that the tone -- and the frequent asides providing context on some especially improbable invention, such as the Hermit Kingdom -- reminds me strongly of Neal Stephenson. (The Hermit Kingdom features chalk cliffs that are 'just a doomy frontage for sunlit uplands'; 'that government, like an empty restaurant who won’t give you a table, was still very much wedded to the idea that their borders were under siege, even though it was probably a decade since anybody had felt any desire at all to sneak into the country'; one of the novel's more delightful characters is the maverick Secretary of State for DEFRA, first encountered in a powered wetsuit; and the South-West Peninsula is a macabre wildlife preserve, run by tech billionaire Ferenc Barca. But I digress.)
Venomous Lumpsucker is, on one level, a profoundly depressing vision of an imminent future where failing agriculture means awful food, extinction is subject to market forces, uncontrolled spindrifters (reminiscent of Theo Jansen's creations) roam the seas whipping up random storms, insects -- 'yayflies' -- are genetically engineered to maximise the amount of joy in the universe, and everyone is embarrassed at mention of the United States. It's easy (as I've done here) to applaud the inventive details: but there is also a solid, and often poignant, plot, though it does sometimes get obscured by the sheer exuberance of Beauman's writing. Immense fun, and a worthy (and accessible) winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award.
After reading Beauman's first novel, Boxer, Beetle, I wrote "I'd like to read his other work to see if the promise of this book is fulfilled." My conclusion is a resounding 'yes, yes it is'.
'...We’re losing the spiny shore beetle and at least another ten thousand like it every year. You say you’d rather die than lose dogs, but to lose those ten thousand a year doesn’t trouble you at all.’
‘Christ, you people never stop talking about your ten thousand a year, it’s like being in fucking Jane Austen.'[p. 184]
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