Reviews

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

geraldinerowe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

There was a lot about this book that I liked, but I was frustrated that most of it didn't work well enough. While the overall premise is ingenious, the characters aren't particularly well drawn, especially the female ones, and the humour struck me as odd. It's understated but relentless and at first I thought it cheapened the message, but then the hilarious comments on the Hermit Kingdom (and one mention of the US) would've felt jarring without it. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the ending(s). For me the book kind of forgot about its earlier plot lines, but when capitalism meets the climate crisis there are only so many ways it can go.

lamalo's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

cocoloco's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

slschmidt's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

emmaperth's review against another edition

adventurous funny informative mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

liorlueg's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

soops's review against another edition

4.5

smart engaging and funny. i thought the characters had a lot of depth and i really liked resaint's point of view chapters. environmental speculative fiction! cool and interesting and unique. i'm not sure i like epilogue 2 as much i liked the rest of the book, but i found it thought provoking nonetheless.

i also really liked how unlikeable the point of view characters were! or more like how uninterested they were in having the "audience" like them or agree with them. they felt like people who had their own goals and ambitions and their actions flowed very naturally from their philosophies.

anakuu's review against another edition

dark funny informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

mbp_918's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

timinbc's review against another edition

3.0

Another reviewer said something to the effect of "this is the most light-hearted book about species extinction that you'll ever see." Yes. That was the problem.

I see a clever wordsmith here, but not a novelist, at least not this time. We have two very drab lead characters, and B dislikes A. That's OK, so did I.

I see a plot that started with a few keystone ideas, led out two leads into difficulty, and then apparently pantsed it from there, wrapping it up hastily when the page count reached target.

The lead-up to the ending was tolerable, I suppose, but I was skipping great gobs of text by that point, because everything has proceeded SO slowly for SO long. And then Ned did that thing to that character, WTF, and then offered us two alternate endings, neither very satisfactory.

Perhaps it's my fault that I didn't grasp what was going on with the spindrifters, because it seemed for a while that they could be more interesting than the title fish.

Also, the computers we were shown for 400 pages were not even a hint of what we got in the last section. Enough that it felt like cheating. As if Karin had said "oh, didn't I tell you I can fly?" as she soared out of the 60-foot pit of spikes and poison.

I fear this book tried to do too many things and ended up doing none of them well.