Venomous Lumpsucker

A moderately entertaining post-apocalyptic satire, tempered by the depressing fact that it's a little bit too close to reality. I found the Hermit Kingdom amusing - and not difficult to work out which country it related to - and the main characters were consistent, rather than undergoing some kind of quasi-religious conversion part-way through. I don't think there's much re-read value here for me though, it's definitely one of those 'read once, donate to charity' books.

A conceptually provocative, but often disjointed narrative, following an extinction offsetting industry professional and an animal intelligence evaluator as they follow the trail of an unusually smart (and vengeful) species of fish (presumed extinct?). Strong and sophisticated worldbuilding, but the characters (and their motives) felt a bit flatter, and Beauman's different registers of humour and satire sometimes felt like they were pulling in wildly different directions (with riffs on Brexit and its aftermath reading much broader and less illuminating than, e.g., his perspective on the political economy of extinction-era environmental offsets).