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So, so good. I’ve probably read Nova Swing six times by now…

The Death Sentence episode on Light is a very good discussion and introduction to Harrison and his work. https://soundcloud.com/death-sentence-pod/m-john-harrison-li... (start from 55 minutes in if you want to skip some three-year-old-news and obligatory death metal interlude)

I loved all three books. I do most of my reading before going to bed. These ones had a huge effect on my dreams, in a way no other books have. I'd describe it as adding colour where there was none before. The prose was exuberant. I usually find detailed descriptions boring, but here it felt like they had a purpose beyond just making you imagine what things looked like.

Do not want anything related to dread. I’ve got enough of that in my life.

Thanks for the warning!

It's literary fiction; lots of people strongly dislike literary fiction. It doesn't sell well. I like it, though. Will definitely read this!

I am tempted to try this one just because it has won a major award, and I'm a huge sci fi reader.

However, I suspect I will be one of the one star or DNF reviewers - I haven't enjoyed any of the other M John Harrison books I tried. The ideas are usually interesting but the execution tends towards weirdness and not much plot. Great at creating atmosphere but not so good at holding my attention. Maybe I will give it a go...

Public reviews are not all over the place -- they are remarkably bad.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Everything-M-John-Harrison-ebook/...

Ever since Amazon.com allowed blank feedback alongside proper reviews, there's been inflation in every book's rating, with most books clustering around 4.2 - 4.6 Stars.

These days, a 4.0 on Amazon means that a book is questionable, divisive, or has editorial errors. A 3.8 has serious issues.

I believe this is because Amazon prompts you for a review/rating after you've finished the book -- if you read on a Kindle, you only get the prompt when the book is at 100% complete -- so those who do not finish a book seem not to rate.

I don't think I've ever seen anything with a 3.1-star rating across >100 reviews. This suggests that the book is exceptionally bad -- that people were motivated to leave poor reviews.

By all accounts it's a very vague story...

Gnomon might be my favorite book ever. It’s one of those books where the first time through it’s disjointed and almost seems like a collection of novellas, then the second read you see the connections from the beginning and it all makes sense, and reads 3+ reward with really deep semiotics and structural parallels that I can only describe as fractal.

So Harrison aside, if you find yourself without reading material at some point, I’d really encourage giving it another try. It’s certainly abstract, but there is incredible depth and coherence throughout.

Gnomon is quite tough. His earlier book Angelmaker is fun though. Maybe you’ll like it?

I have read The End of Everything and other M. John Harrison books, both conventional rock-climbing memoir and way out space opera.

IMHO if you like Harrison's prose and the atmosphere, keep going. Even if the plot is hard to make out. IHMO, If you are reading M. John Harrison for the plot, then you're in the wrong book.

I can see how some would be bored or baffled by this book, or even dislike it intensely. If you didn't like his other books, then this one is more in that vein, and in some ways more so. If so, you probably won't enjoy this one either.

He has said "A good ground rule for writing in any genre is: start with a form, then ask what it's afraid of" (1) He is deconstructing, not constructing, stories.

The End of Everything has an anti-plot, is set in anti-places and contains at least character that is anti-person.

If it's not for you then that's perfectly OK. I don't pretend to understand why it won an award, but I liked it. Probably. It's hard to be sure. And that's something out of the ordinary.

There are though, themes or images that are of a particular time and place (2026, South coast of England). Most notably Boats taking people across the Channel to some-place uncertain but "not here". If you are somewhere else then that image might not mean anything to you, but the resonance with current UK political discourse must be deliberate. And it helps to "get" it.

In the same way that his last book The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again (2020) was about the fallout, the curdled nostalgia and communication failures of the post-Brexit moment. (2) Maybe. If it's "about" anything other than aquatic humanoids, dodgy jobs and fairy tales, IDK.

1) https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jul/20/m-john-harri...

2) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/19/the-sunken-lan...

Haven't heard the term "abstract" applied to a plot, unless you mean highly metaphorical? Genuinely curious in case it's something I'd like. What's an example, without giving too much away?

a tangent, Nick Harkaway is John le Carré's son.

I'd say it's a deserved winner. I'm not usually someone who reads many booker prize nominees but I happened to have read I think at least 6/7 of the long list and I would say flowery plot and writing is common to getting nominated so I can't complain about that. John of John being far worse for this. I possibly if I had to pick my favourite I would have gone Helen of Nowhere or Switzy but that's simply I'm often very drawn into the type of story Fitzcarraldo publish, (Switzy not being Fitzcarraldo but of a similar vibe).

I think the key for me is sci fi being recoqnised as an important category in media creation. It's a genre that doesn't often get the big awards despite in my view often having some of the best character development and emotional and moral plot lines. Obviously TNG with the late great Patrick Stewart being a huge cultural influence for those reasons.

> Harrison pierced the veil between "genre" and "general literary fiction"

Indeed, as did the much-missed Iain Banks. The Guardian's headline is tiresomely reductive, although of course that's no more than one expects from the press. I would suggest that Harrison's two best-known books are The Course of the Heart and Climbers, both of which fall squarely into the category of "general literary fiction".

Feel like Ishiguro got close, with Never Let Me Go making the shortlist and Klara and the Sun making the longlist, but neither of those feel like they had the gravitas to win it.

Curious what books you think should've potentially clinched it?

I haven't read the novel, but going by the Wikipedia article you could argue that just because it features astronauts on the ISS doesn't yet make it science fiction - as long as nothing unusual happens to the astronauts, what goes on on the ISS is no more science fiction than what an airline pilot does in their day-to-day job.

Even the author seems to agree (also from Wikipedia): "In an interview, Harvey stated that her goal was to write the novel as a "space pastoral", focusing on realism and the beauty of space rather than the speculative nature of science fiction."

I love books that cross the category boundaries. Unfortunately some people do not, and adding a bit too much romance to your sci-fi novel, or too-much sci-fi to your romance novel will likely piss off some readers of the genre and kill the rating, which career writers are forced to maximize for sales. The genres are forced on the book at the publishing stage and, unless you are an established author, picking the wrong one can be a disaster. (Been there, done that!)

When you read Orbital, you very much get the feeling that it is squarely planting itself in the territory of "exploring right now in a literary way" rather than being sci-fi. I think it has a strong vibe of really not wanting to be considered sci-fi. That what makes it an interesting book

The distinction is that Harrison has spent his entire fairly lengthy career being published as a science fiction author, and the others did not. They were all firmly in the mainstream literary camp, even if their books occasionally strayed over.