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The End of Everything (Harrison novel)
2026 post-apocalyptic novel by M. John Harrison
The End of Everything is a 2026 post-apocalyptic novel by M. John Harrison, published in the UK by Serpent's Tail. It is Harrison's 13th novel and won the 2026 Booker Prize.
The novel develops a storyline that the author first explored in his short story The Crisis, which was published in 2017. It is set on the south coast of England where the beachcombing protagonist collects alien artefacts. The origin and purpose of the aliens is uncertain and the style of the work is mysterious and unsettling. The author wrote the work to portray "the failure of explanation in society" and so eschewed the rational worldbuilding of more conventional works. He wanted it to evoke the New Wave works of science fiction which were serialised in New Worlds – an influential magazine that Harrison worked on from 1968 to 1976.
The End of Everything has been variously described as science fiction, speculative fiction, dystopian and satirical, and as a work of both weird fiction and realism. Harrison himself has been called a "genre-defying" writer.
Synopsis
The setting is South East England in the near future after a crisis has disrupted society. Monstrous and mysterious iGhetti have appeared in the City of London. They are large airy columns which distort reality, creating "bad patches". Central government seems to have collapsed and Europe is now a "lost continent". But many features of society remain and the main protagonist, Phillip Tennent, makes a living by beachcombing for artefacts spawned by the iGhetti which wash up on the shore.
He finds an artefact which develops human characteristics: growing limbs, starting to speak and developing a relationship with Tennent's aunt, Marnie, who is an elderly artist with dementia. The story follows Tennent and his aunt as they both make journeys from the coast to London – Tennent trying to sell the artefact while his aunt is exiled after killing a teenager.
Reception
Writing in The Guardian, reviewer Michel Faber described it as a "dreamlike and baffling" work that "elucidates humanity's disintegrating existence with strange clarity".
The End of Everything won the 2026 Booker Prize, making Harrison the oldest writer and the first science-fiction author to receive the award. The Booker Prize Foundation described it as a "slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure into the limits of human understanding", and Dame Mary Beard, chair of the judges' panel, said it was a book "that turns you upside down, raises a wry smile – and surprisingly, given the subject matter, leaves you with a twinge of optimism".