Book Review: Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

No book has the right to be this good. It's the sort of howling sci-fi satire that Ben Elton used to excel at - a novel set five minutes in the future with a eye firmly on today's problems.

The plot is delightful - what if carbon credits extinction credits were the new capitalist plaything? What second, third, and forth order effects would that have on the world? The worldbuilding is sublime - with an prescient look at the evolution of DRM, Smart Contracts, AI assistants, and targetted assassinations.

The characters are perfectly fleshed out and gradually reveal their motivations and insecurities:

one big thing about the socially normal was that they loved their social norms. Whereas Resaint couldn’t stand the politics, the niceties, the meetings where she had to spangle her expression and tone of voice with false enthusiasm just so people didn’t think she was a bitch.

There is a slight tendency towards Socratic dialogue as a means of exposition. The satire itself isn't exactly subtle - but when it has this many twists and turns I can forgive it for laying it on a bit thick.

The ending(s) genuinely shocked me.