Venomous Lumpsucker
by Ned Beauman · first published 2022
6mentions
5recommended by
6HN commenters
2023–2026first – last mentioned
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Satirical near-future novel about extinction credits and market-based conservation, with a weird, darkly funny take on industrial consumption and ethics at scale.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…like fungal colonies or AI subroutines, mechanical components of a self-perpetuating super-organism, with no real subjectivity of their own. That said, she would have happily watched any of them die. - Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman I know it's still science/climate fiction, but very relevant to your point.
on “Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)” ↗I think this is probably a riff on something that happens in /Venomous Lumpsucker/ by Ned Beauman. I won't give it away but do highly recommend the book.
on “An adult fruit fly brain has been mapped” ↗I'm reminded of the novel "Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beauman, a deeply weird satire about the perverse incentives and behaviors engendered by the union of industrial consumption, market-based conservation, and the abstract calculus of ethics at…
on “The shrimp welfare project” ↗There’s a work of fiction “Venomous Lumpsucker” that has a near future take on building a regulatory industry exactly around extinction I found it to be a fun read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59593576-venomous-lumpsu...
on “Oxygen discovery defies knowledge of the deep ocean” ↗…geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean This (and the concept of extinction credits) is an opening plot point in the book “Venomous Lumpsucker”, which I found a good read.
on “Deep-sea vehicles spot 'alien' sharks deep beneath the waves in the Pacific” ↗Isn't this concept lifted directly from Ned Beauman's Venomous Lumpsucker? I'm hearing bells. Church bells. :)
on “Whole-brain connectome of the fruit fly” ↗