2026 Booker Prize Longlist: The End of Everything by M. John Harrison

by jenp27 on September 15, 2026

Next up for panel is The End of Everything by M. John Harrison. Five of our panel read this book (fewer understood it) and here are our reviews…

M. John Harrison is a British author and literary critic known for fiction that blurs the boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. His career spans more than five decades, with acclaimed works including Viriconium, Light, Climbers, and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. Harrison has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, and the Boardman Tasker Prize, and in 2025 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His latest novel, The End of Everything, was longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize.

Book Synopsis from Booker website: Phillip Tennent makes his living at the tideline, collecting artefacts that wash up from the Channel. It’s been years since the crisis changed everything, but its exact nature remains obscured. Government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures, Europe has been mislaid. It feels like the end.

Now Phillip has fished out of the water an object he can’t keep. A creature that keeps changing. An artefact he must take inland, before it destroys everything he thinks he knows.

Jen’s Thoughts: I tried explaining this book to a colleague and eventually had to give up with an exasperated, “I have no idea what’s happening.” Perhaps that is the point of this book. The publisher’s description calls it an exploration of “the limits of human understanding,” and Harrison himself describes it as being about people using “broken epistemologies” to understand a world they can no longer make sense of.

This is the sort of book that requires multiple readings—and ideally someone with whom to discuss its themes. I absolutely loved the writing. The sentences are beautifully constructed, and the sense of atmosphere is brilliant. And you know me: I like books that build that kind of atmosphere.

There are pieces that I picked up on—climate change, AI, memory, aging—but I had trouble putting those pieces together. Again, I think this was largely the point: perhaps we no longer have the frameworks, or even the interest, to understand the ways in which the world around us is operating and changing—or the ways in which we have contributed to those changes ourselves.

I feel like Marnie is perhaps key to understanding some of the novel, although in ways I still can’t quite put my finger on. I found it particularly interesting to observe her decline alongside the artifact’s development. There seems to be something here about our idea of “progress” and the strange contradictions of the modern world: AI and other rapidly advancing technologies existing alongside emerging political systems, the destruction of the natural world, climate change, and an increasing sense of disconnection and cognitive decline.

I didn’t grasp 98% of this book, but I kind of loved it anyway. And I think it deserves a spot on the shortlist.

Writing quality: 5/5
Originality: 5/5
Character development: 2/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 2/2
Total: 16/20

Tracy’s Thoughts: What a strange, yet beautiful way to for an author to tell his readers goodbye. Harrison has said this is his last book, and he’s written a novel and a long essay on aging, the past and the unknowable future.
I think.
It was confusing, the timeline was blurry (did the iGhetti come during the Thatcher era or long after?), and the characters were reprehensible: a70 year old with a body count, her nephew with a (sort of) conscience and some guy who wanted to eat the sentient “artefact”. Yikes. The plot was simple, but the messages of the book wouldn’t have been clear(?) otherwise.
This was a head scratcher, but I did enjoy trying to figure it out.

Writing quality: 5/5
Originality: 4.5/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 1.5/2
Total: 16/20

Nicole’s Thoughts: This is one of my favorite books from the longlist, which isn’t saying much. I know I say this every year, but this was a weak list. Usually I find one or two books which stand out and make the list worth reading, that didn’t happen this year, and I only have one book left.

I thought this book was well-written and an interesting concept. I would have loved a full blown sci-fi experience because I loved the idea of the IGhetti, but what we got instead was subtlety and nuance. That’s OK, it was great for what it was.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 5/5
Character development: 3/4
Plot development: 3/4
Overall enjoyment: 2/2
Total: 17/20

Anita’s Thoughts: I wanted to like this book, but the storyline is so obscure. I am ALL FOR leaving room for the reader to make their own interpretations, but this book takes it to another level. Honestly, I felt like this novel would be a fascinating one as a basis of a class with chapter by chapter analysis. I would really like to hear how others interpreted different scenes. We don’t give points for thematic quality, and in my mind that was the best quality of this book. It had an important message in there, and I had some theories about what the message is, but I definitely didn’t walk away feeling like a capable reader.

Writing quality: 4/5
Originality: 4/5
Character development: 2/4
Plot development: 2/4
Overall enjoyment: 0/2
Total: 12/20

Andrew’s thoughts: Full disclosure: I definitely did not understand this book or what the author was attempting to accomplish. I suppose it’s a commentary on the decaying social fabric of our society and how we likely wouldn’t survive an apocalypse-type event because we’ve become incurious and just kind of accepted our fate. This is a book without interesting characters and with very abstract (and at times strange) writing; both of which I struggle with. The overall feel of the book is lethargy. Unlike Vivisectors, I actually made it to the end, but kind of wished I hadn’t.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Character development: 1/4
Plot development: 1/4
Overall enjoyment: 0/2
Total: 8/20

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