Beauman's 'biting satire' wins Arthur C Clarke award

Ned Beauman’s “biting satire” Venomous Lumpsucker (Sceptre) has won the Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction. 

Beauman receives a trophy in the form of a commemorative engraved bookend and prize money to the value of £2,023, a tradition that sees the annual prize money rise incrementally by year from the year 2001 in memory of Sir Arthur C Clarke.

Chair of the judges, Dr Andrew M Butler, said: “The judges took several hours to choose their winner and debate was intense but always good-willed. Their choice, Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker, is a biting satire, twisted, dark and radical, but remarkably accessible, endlessly inventive and hilarious.”

Award director Tom Hunter said: “Venomous Lumpsucker takes science fiction’s knack for future extrapolation and aggressively applies it to humanity’s shortsighted self-interest and consumptive urges in the face of planetary eco-crisis. The result is a bleakly funny novel where the only hope for our species is working out the final punchline before it’s delivered.”

The winner was revealed at an award ceremony held at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, to an audience of authors, publishing professionals and science fiction fans.