Every so often a novel comes along that makes me feel both thrilled by its invention and slightly singed by its proximity to our own world’s follies. Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker is exactly that kind of book: a wickedly clever, surreal dystopia about market logic run amok and the small human weaknesses that speed us towards collapse. Published on 14 July 2022 and finally checked off my to‑be‑read list in 2023, it’s a razor‑edged eco‑satire that still manages to be riotously entertaining.
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman: Surreal Dystopia
Beauman imagines a near future where extinction has been financialised: species are insured, traded and, in the cruellest twist, sometimes more valuable dead than alive. Into this nightmare marketplace steps the eponymous fish, the venomous lumpsucker, a creature that becomes both commodity and moral test. The result is a surreally comic chase through a Europe riddled with freeports, data havens and corporate shells, all of it rendered with the gleaming froideur of a world that can price everything but value almost nothing.
At the centre are two superb foils: a driven marine biologist and a morally flexible corporate functionary, forced into an uneasy partnership when a catastrophic loophole wipes out what should have been protected. Their pursuit of the last of the species is part road‑novel, part bureaucratic quest, part farce—propelled by black humour, elaborate scams and the constant dread that even their noblest intentions have already been arbitraged into irrelevance. Beauman’s set‑pieces—border crossings, off‑shore facilities, clandestine labs—feel heightened yet chillingly plausible.
Stylistically, it’s classic Beauman: antic, erudite, and just a touch delirious. The prose dances from deadpan committee‑speak to barbed aphorism without losing pace, and the worldbuilding is dense with sly ideas—smart contracts for salvation, corporate personhood stretched to cosmic thinness, and tech that promises control while engineering dependence. It’s a surreal narrative about human frailty and societal breakdown that never forgets to be a blisteringly good story.
A biting satire of human frailty and collapse 🍵🍵🍵🍵
What stings most here is not the apocalyptic window‑dressing but the way ordinary pettiness—careerism, blame‑shifting, the urge to optimise one’s conscience—becomes the engine of catastrophe. Beauman skewers the polite fictions of corporate responsibility and the soothing chatter of metrics, showing how easily moral urgency evaporates once there’s a spreadsheet to balance. It’s savage, but it’s also sobering: the joke is funny precisely because it’s perilously close to home.
The characters aren’t saints or monsters; they’re recognisably human, which makes their compromises feel painfully credible. The biologist’s stubborn idealism collides with the fixer’s nimble self‑preservation, and the frictions between them produce both farce and genuine pathos. Around them swarm auditors, consultants and custodians of loopholes, each convinced they’re merely following procedure. If dystopia here has a face, it’s the bland smile of process made sacred.
As a long‑time lover of sci‑fi and dystopia, I found this both exhilarating and alarming, and I’m happy to pour it a strong four teacups. My rating: 🍵🍵🍵🍵 out of five. I wish I could share a killer line without risking misquotation, but suffice it to say there’s a late‑book moment where the price of “doing the right thing” is rendered in a ledger’s cold arithmetic—and it’s the sort of gag that leaves a bruise. Come for the laughs; stay for the aftertaste of dread.
Venomous Lumpsucker is that rare dystopian satire that feels as meticulously engineered as the systems it mocks, yet as alive and slippery as the creature at its heart. If you enjoy fiction that’s equal parts high‑concept caper and moral autopsy, this is a must‑read—fluent, funny, and faintly terrifying. Brew a pot, brace yourself, and dive in before the market closes.