Journal | Lagoonscapes
Monographic journal issue | 4 | 2 | 2024
Research Article | The Price of Extinction and the Epic Journey to Mourn Beyond the Human in Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker
The Price of Extinction and the Epic Journey to Mourn Beyond the Human in Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker
Abstract
This article aims to explore how contemporary speculative fiction contributes to the current debate about the extinction crisis in the context of the Anthropocene by the critical analysis of Ned Beauman’s latest novel Venomous Lumpsucker (2022). First, it explores how in a future speculative world, where the exploitative drive of the neoliberal economic system interlocks with the latest technologies, the monetisation of life ends up detaching the notions of extinction and death. Additionally, it follows and interprets the epic travel of a cognitive scientist from apathy to environmental awareness and her complex journey towards mourning beyond the human.
Submitted: Aug. 1, 2024 | Accepted: Sept. 23, 2024 | Published Dec. 6, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Anthropocene • Extinction • Necrocene • Speculative fiction • Ned Beauman • Ecological mourning
Copyright © 2024 María Torres Romero. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2024/02/006
