The 2023 Arthur C Clarke Award for best science fiction novel was given toVenomous Lumpsucker, a satire which addresses ‘humanity’s shortsighted self-interest’Beauman’s novel is a “biting satire, twisted, dark & radical, but remarkably accessible, endlessly inventive & hilarious,” said judging chair Andrew M Butler.°°°A dark & witty story of environmental collapse & runaway capitalism from theBooker-listedauthor ofThe Teleportation Accident.The near future. Tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. And a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, to help us preserve the remnants, or perhaps just assuage our guilt. For instance, thebiobanks: secure archives of DNA samples, from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected . . . But then, one day, it’s all gone. A mysterious cyber-attack hits everybiobanksimultaneously, wiping out the last traces of the perished species. Now we’re never getting them back.Karin Resaint&Mark Halyardare concerned with one species in particular: thevenomous lumpsucker, a small, ugly bottom-feeder that happens to be the most intelligent fish on the planet.Resaintis an animal cognition scientist consumed with existential grief over what humans have done to nature.Halyardis an exec from the extinction industry, complicit in the mining operation that destroyed thelumpsucker’slast-known habitat.Across thedystopian landscapes of the 2030s—a nature reserve full of toxic waste; a floating city on the ocean; the hinterlands of a totalitarian state—Resaint&Halyardhunt for a survivinglumpsucker. And the further they go, the deeper they’re drawn into the mystery of the attack on thebiobanks. Who was really behind it? And why would anyone do such a thing?Virtuosic & profound, witty & despairing,Venomous LumpsuckerisNed Beaumanat his very best.In2013the author was named one ofGranta’sbest young British novelists.