Ned Beauman

(2.25 Stars)

I started this book and when I got to 20% was completely lost... I figured I must have zoned out and not paid attention to something, so I started from the very beginning again. It didn't help, I felt like that upon the second read-through. I won't say that I didn't enjoy the book, but I will say that I didn't love the book. I really liked Boxer, Beetle and was hoping to like this one as much, but it just never really clicked for me. With that being said, I will read this Author again.

The Author seems very intelligent and clever, but maybe too vague in some parts and too wordy in others. The thoughts of the characters go off in tangents and you're not quite sure where one ends and the next begins, or if it is a tangent inside of a tangent. The story is about a hidden temple, that after being discovered wants to be dismantled and moved by one faction while also being used as a movie set by another. Only the factions use shared resources and the leaders are indiscernible from insane.

Readers of the Johannes Cabal series would like this book, also readers of Warren Ellis, and maybe even Donald Barthelme.… (mer)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/venomous-lumpsucker-by-ned-beauman/

A vicious yet funny satire on global politics and the environmental crisis, sort of Kim Stanley Robinson but with sæva indignatio added. It’s mostly set in a near-future Europe from which Britain is (mostly) absent; the role played by the Brits become slowly apparent along with much else that is hinted at in early chapters. Written with passion and confidence, and you’ll be thinking of it for ages.… (mer)