"Venomous Lumpsucker" Discuss Everything (Spoilers)

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

[Becky]

OK so I finished this last night, and it both was and was VERY NOT what I expected. (By the way, I listened to the audiobook, so some of the names were lost on me . I still have no idea what the actual name of Halyard's company is.)

"Was" in the respect that it was really depressing how humanity has to commodify everything, and how animals hold so little value to us as living beings that went through the same evolutionary journey to make it to the current age - just a slightly different route and result. I also did expect the morality and ethical problems of this situation to be discussed, but I feel a little bit "meh" on this aspect, and I can't put my finger quite on why.

I was not at all surprised by the final reveal of the "sanctuary" being the elite hunting grounds of the Elon Musk of this book.

Was VERY NOT: I did not expect to like and identify with Halyard quite as much as I did - him being an extinction industry c*** after all. LOL When he was trying to eat the veal brain tartare early on in the book, I was very much put off by his disappointment with the meal - in that there wasn't enough of it, and come on, baby calf brain slivers??? Ruthless. But as the story progressed and we learned more and more about the ways that the Earth Situation has affected food, I began to really feel for him. I love food, and I don't think I could live in a world with no flavor.

I didn't really expect this to be a kind of Amazing Race quest from point to point to point to track down the last of the venomous lumpsuckers, but I'm not mad about it? It was all over the place (literally and figuratively) but it came together, and was enjoyable in the process - if not in the resolution. I especially liked Wilson (I think that was his name) who lived in the Hermit Kingdom. I want some of what he's on. He cracked me up. Paraphrasing my favorite conversation:
"Where did Garrett get the fish?"
"I'm pretty sure he got it out of the sea"
"Where--?"
"About 500 yards that way."
"Garrett is?"
"No. That's where the sea is."

Genius. Just terminally helpful and friendly, Wilson is. You want to strangle him for missing all of the points, but damn if he won't help you get JUST the right grip on his throat. LOL

I was also really surprised by how philosophical Halyard was, even if I didn't agree with his takes. I think that he reasoned them fairly and justifiably.

Things I didn't like:
I didn't like the Selim (?) storyline. I think I get the purpose he served in the story - to be the counterpoint to Resaint, who got into the anti-extinction basically by accident, and to the ChuChu activists, who stand on their moral principles regardless of what others think, unlike Selim facing ONE derisive man and caving on his life's work. But I hoped for him to get re-involved in a more tangible way, and I didn't really enjoy the "I'm too hideous to have sex with unless you wear these AR glasses" scene. I did like that he wasn't really bothered by her appearance though.

I didn't love the ending(s). Too much was left unresolved for me.
1) Did the mermaid get Elon (Ferrick or whatever his real name was)?
2) Did Halyard allow his newly acquired moral principles to be turned by some good food?
3) What did Resaint choose? I can make arguments for all 3 options.

I really don't like this much ambiguity after finishing a book. I don't necessarily need a perfect ribbon tied around the ending, but I do like... SOME kind of resolution.

[Netanella]

Becky, I loved your thoughts on this thread. I finished this book about three days ago and am still thinking about various events that occurred in it.

I think Halyard turned out to be one of my favorite characters, by the end. And I enjoyed the ambiguity to the ending - it felt right.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

There was a bit of a left turn for me in this book, but I did feel that it explored everything the book looked at, whether or not I was expecting the twist. I do feel the end was a bit weaker than the rest, but it was all such a smart satire/critique, I wasn't mad about it. I also listened to it, so I cannae help with the names lolol

[Becky]

Netanella, some of the scenes are quite memorable for sure.

Allison, I ended up borrowing the ebook for a reference line and I was WAYYYYYYY off on several of the names. Brahmasasumudrum?? Never. I thought that was a 3 word phrase, like a law firm. Brom Assam Mudrum or something lol

I downgraded my rating a lot because of the endings. I just really dislike when books don’t have a proper ending. Give me a bad ending over no ending.

[Becky]

Netanella, I read your review and you mention that the ending was the best part for you. As I mentioned, I didn’t like the ambiguity of it, so I’m curious about your impressions of the ending. What do you think happened? Or do you like it BECAUSE of the ambiguity?

[Melanie, the neutral party]

I finished! I do feel I missed some details via audio and am likely to re-read, maybe next year.

Everyone in the non-spoiler thread was 'rooting' for Lumpsucker, so I *assumed* at some point the lumpsuckers would kill at least 1 human. I am strangely disappointed this did not happen.

I feel the ending was intended to be some final comic punches as opposed to finishing the narrative ... it is what it is.

[Becky]

I, too, was hoping for a venomous lumpsucker to be some unscrupulous extinction dealer's karmic end. Alas. No.

[Netanella]

Becky wrote: "Netanella, I read your review and you mention that the ending was the best part for you. As I mentioned, I didn’t like the ambiguity of it, so I’m curious about your impressions of the ending. What..."

I liked it because of the ambiguity. As a matter of fact, I had an image flash in my head, from an old, old movie, called "Flash Gordon," where after the heroes celebrate defeating the bad guy Ming, a gloved hand picks up his ring, and an 8 year old me wondered, "is this really the end?" As you can tell, it stuck with me for a long time.

https://youtu.be/pCZAnawSVe4

[Jeff]

Just finished the book and generally enjoyed it. A clever and original idea gets an author pretty far with me, and this felt pretty new. I had read one of Ned Beauman's previous books (Madness Is Better than Defeat) and I preferred this one. It reminded me a little bit of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, with the focus on the economic impacts and ramifications of climate change (exaggerated for effect, but perhaps not too much) but faster paced and more entertaining.

I liked the main characters and their interaction, though it did feel like Halyard evolved pretty quickly and conveniently (or did he, based on one of the cliff hanger endings). The Hermit Kingdom concept was well-deployed -- don't think I expected it to be the UK, so that was a nice amusing twist. I felt Beauman did a good job of creating distinctive locations for the action to take place.

I enjoyed the discussions of the many different species and their attributes, and found myself really wanting to see/meet a venomous lumpsucker (though not too close).

3.5 stars for me

New to the group, and excited to take part in this communal activity.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

It was quite a biting acidic satire! I usually enjoy these kinds of books, and Wilson was so much fun, but in the end I was actually depressed. It very likely will play out something like this in the future. Even when people weren’t really trying to save any critters but were only trying to get rich, even when people WERE trying to save the environment and the critters, the misfires of good intentions and the success of those killing off wildlife while pretending to save wildlife reminded me of so many actual real-life misfires and criminality. I’m old enough to remember when the environment and saving critters movements started back in the early 1970’s. As anyone can see, those circumventing the rules are absolutely winning. All of those 1970ish “Clean Air” and “Clean Water” initiatives and all of the politicians making rules and laws to reduce pesticides and fertilizers and the promises to reduce the growing of monocrops, and the all of the political promises of keeping forests healthy by keeping the farmers, loggers and miners out, that are constantly being talked about in the media, everybody banging on about all of the watersheds, and waterways, and wild lands being protected, have not exactly been truthfully and faithfully carried out. Google maps exposes the lies even if politicians won’t.

I highly recommend the book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.

[Cheryl L]

I was so excited to get this book on the shelf, but overall, it didn't work for me.

I thought the world-building was excellent, and Beauman did a great job immersing me in this future world. The swarms of yay flies, the spindrifters, the migrant camp, and the ocean city were all distinct and visually intriguing.

I found the two main characters irritating at best. I found Halyard more believable than Resaint, and Resaint a poor advocate for endangered species, which is one of my main quibbles with the book. There were no competent advocates for why mass extinction is bad for humans. The character I'm imaging could still have been flawed like Resaint and Halyard but would have least had a clue about ecology.

Which leads to my biggest quibble with the book. It is rooted in conservation ecology that is decades out of date. Since the book is science fiction and set in some nearish future, I want to see current ecology/conservation principles taken 50 or 100 years in the future. While most endangered species policy is rooted in protecting a species (or several species) in an ecosystem, the more important goal for conservation ecology is protecting whole ecosystems, such as the Nature Conservancy has been doing in the US for decades. There wasn't even a nod to this concept in Venomous Lumpsucker.

The other thing I didn't like was the totally illogical philosophical debates. I found them irritating rather than satirical and humorous. Resaint's reason for trying to save the Lumpsucker is top on my list of irritating philosophical reasoning. In the end, it was all about her needs and not the Lumpsucker's.

I did appreciate the economy set up around extinction credits. In this cynical future, an endangered species was something to be purchased, traded, and sold. Of course, humans figured out how to game and find loopholes in their own system for species protection. Typical!

So a few things I liked but loads I didn't like.

[Becky]

Cheryl L wrote: "While most endangered species policy is rooted in protecting a species (or several species) in an ecosystem, the more important goal for conservation ecology is protecting whole ecosystems, such as the Nature Conservancy has been doing in the US for decades. There wasn't even a nod to this concept in Venomous Lumpsucker.

The other thing I didn't like was the totally illogical philosophical debates. I found them irritating rather than satirical and humorous."

THIS! I couldn't put my finger on it, but something kept niggling at me about this. In my head, I was like every species has its role in the ecosystem, so losing one matters, and losing many could lead to collapse. A botanist character from another series I love refers to that as the "cascade" - one species fails, and then the ones that depend on that one fail, and so on. I would be the first in line for the eradication of mosquitos if it was possible with no negative ecosystem repercussions, but their larvae are food for many other species, at the very least, so it would have repercussions.

Then for Halyard to discount that concept in his philosophical commentary, it just irked me. Like "But they are small, and not cute, so who cares? What have they done for ME lately?"

And it seemed like the whole book was centered around this concept of "We have the DNA info on file should we need it one day, NBD." But... reintroducing species into an ecosystem that hasn't seen them in years/decades/centuries/longer has huge effects too. Did NOBODY watch Jurassic Park??! lol

[Cheryl L]

Becky wrote: "And it seemed like the whole book was centered around this concept of "We have the DNA info on file should we need it one day, NBD." But... reintroducing species into an ecosystem that hasn't seen them in years/decades/centuries/longer has huge effects too. Did NOBODY watch Jurassic Park??! lol"

An ecosystem is more like a game of Jenga or pick-up-sticks, with thousands of pieces that you have to play blindfolded. You don't know which piece(s)/species that, once removed, will cause the collapse of the ecosystem. And some pieces (species) are more important and less redundant in the game/ecosystem.

And I don't even want to get into the genetics part of the book! A genetic sequence does not an organism make, nor do a few genetic sequences make a viable population of organisms.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I recently re-read it, and I do feel a bit differently than you, Cheryl, though it is not related to my actual work like it is for you, so I'm sure for you it's a lot more "glaring" of an issue!

For me though, and especially on a second read, there was a lot about the ecosystem. Indeed, the fact that we spend all this time going after one fish in all the myriad crumbling systems feels like it is part of the point--humans are so fascinated with things it can relate to, it will add hundreds of tons of chlorine to the last remaining fish supporting reefs, and kill off all the insects that make up the majority of the biomass and fill the soil with anything that will grow even to the point of nutrient depletion so nothing tastes of anything and still wonder about the pandas.

There were a lot of points in the book that talked about how the argument against worrying about any one extinction is because of the ecosystem and how we think systems are resilient to some change because of course they always have been, broadly (in that we are still here and have viable food sources) what with ecological niches being filled by some amount of redundancy supported by the system in a specific area, and then we sort of gloss over all of that, as the book wants us to, because we're also willing to feed ourselves lies that we can see are leading to devastation in service to the dollar, a fine meal, a sense of justice, a pet project and other very short sighted goals.

I also think they talked a lot about the fact that the genetics are not the animal--what with cloned offal being tossed in people's faces and fake sushi tasting or not like the real thing, and the consideration of breeding plans vs. watching animals in their habitat. We also see the concern about sequencing =/= the person with upload concerns and 50 microgram slices of brain of that guy's wife and the questions that raises--and the tech wasn't even available in the book to make them! The hope is that we WILL have the tech, which is so utterly human and reminiscent to me right now of AI. Sure, AI is fast and can write things and make images that are cool, and yes sure it's using resources faster than we can replenish them, but it's cool tech, isn't it, and surely by the time the Sahara starts expanding faster, and the nuclear waste starts to decay, AI will also have provided us solutions! So it will be totally fine, trust the process, what can go wrong, please submit your timesheets by Friday.

Re: the endings. I hated this the first time, too. On second read, I'm not sure if I was just prepared for them or what, but they felt much better to me. This book focuses on that first and final domino being tipped. It's still somewhat possible, especially given the ending, that they don't all crash. And it's also possible that when the last one falls it hits the trip switch and everything goes kaboom. And I think, as this is a satire, Beauman wanted to leave us both with hope and some questions. We are where we are, as a world. It's not looking good. We're not fully out of time, but we have got some BIG choices to make. And if part of the point of satire is to hold a mirror to society, I think that what ending you ultimately hope for or find most believable is the reflection point of the whole work.