Plot: ?/9.
Halyard threatened his employee called Resaint not to publish the research that Venomous Lumpsucker—a species that Halyard was just informed that his inferiors had accidentally exterminated—had high intelligence.
(I dropped this book after completing chapter 3, because of the low pace burdened with convoluted, unnecessary and abstruse details. Ned Beauman’s writing style was not my cup of tea: Too much noise, too little plot. A popular writer usually weaves interesting and introductory plots to familiarize readers with the fascinating world-building gradually rather than congests the context with the explanatory settings en masse.)